When YouTube wants to break into the business of selling advertisements, the instant success TV website turns to Paris for help in selling its first ad. When Google launched a UK version of its video site, Paris was there to greet new arrivals with the video of Stars are Blind, her reggae-inspired single.

Video, of course, is what helped the heiress to break into the big time, but now it is her turn to be exploited by Warner, which is picking up a chunk of the ad revenues generated on YouTube.

Gone are the days when music companies simply gave their videos to MTV or even control of digital technology to Apple. But in the world of digital content, music is fast emerging as the must-have: after the near terminal brush with Napster, consumers are beginning to come round to paying for music online, when other types of content, such as newspapers and even books, are being given away.

Music is a linchpin of social networking sites such as Bebo and, although newspapers try desperately to podcast their way into new audiences, it is probably fair to assume that what people really want to listen to is not a nasal, poorly read business news report, but some good tunes. This, after all, is the principle on which most radio works, and even Radio 4 has Desert Island Discs.

Even the music industry has begun to realise its strength. For all the popularity of singing, it has been a lousy business. Margins are low. The big four global record companies are collectively worth not much more than £10 billion. That figure sounds impressive until you set it against the market value of, say, BSkyB (38 per cent owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times), a one-country broadcaster that is worth £9 billion. This explains why Universal wants to get into bed with Channel 4’s internet radio bid, and why the world’s No 1 record company wants to produce, or at least introduce, content for television, pushing acts of the quality of Girls Aloud on to digital television. The worry, of course, is that as the record companies push back the boundaries, the editorial independence of previously separate media may be put under pressure in the new era.

Yet that is mitigated by internet rating systems: on Google, Stars are Blind has earned three stars out of five in ratings submitted by 23,766 listeners. There is also the good sense of the record-buying public. In the US the bland single barely made the Top 20, although the album made it as high as No 6 in the quiet month of August. Warner may have creamed off a few ad dollars on the back of the YouTube deal, but marketing, mercifully, takes you only so far.

• Good luck to the smart aleck venture capitalists who fancy buying NTL, Britain’s only cable company. Cable does not need a deal. There have been countless as the sector built up from the fatal initial decision to create council-by-council monopolies, creating unwieldy companies that delivered sub-par service to consumers.

  There was a break, when the industry nearly went bust as a result of all the debt taken on, but, luckily, activity has picked up. NTL has bought Telewest and Virgin Mobile in the past few months, so it is about time that management were distracted by another big move.

  Cable has also been littered with backstreet drivers. The business has been dominated by American investors, whose interest in the UK has been so marginal that they have failed to appreciate national differ- ences. On that basis, another set of mystery owners, to replace Bill Huff, who in turn replaced George Blumenthal, the former chairman of NTL, will not be any worse.

  Loading up NTL with more debt would be a nice reminder of the old days, too. Yet it would be better if the company had a stable, organic, long-term strategy, just as the competition from the likes of BT (never mind Sky) is hotting up.

• How many freesheets will London have a year from now? At least four: Metro, City AM and two new launches — but there may be others, too. With so much free news available in print, online and on television, how many young people are going to get into the habit of paying?

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