But here’s a very slight twist: The sales decline slowed in the most recent quarter. U.S. sales dropped 11.1 percent in Q3, compared to a 14.5 percent drop in Q2, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Michael Jackson isn’t going to pass away again–and that unless they finally do come to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes, there probably isn’t another way to repackage the Beatles again. Billboard:

Renewed interest in the Beatles and Michael Jackson slowed the decline of U.S. album sales in the third quarter, although the industry is still on track to fall for the eighth time in nine years….

Music retailers are hoping that the continued performance of Jackson and Beatles albums and a strong fourth-quarter release schedule will continue to make up lost ground.

During the quarter, Jackson’s June 25 death fueled sales of about 5 million units, and the September 9 re-release of the Beatles catalog has sold 1.3 million units so far.

So far this year 11 albums have topped the 1 million-unit mark, the same number as in 2008. In 2008, the top seller was Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III,” at 2.5 million units; this year’s top seller is Jackson’s “Number Ones,” at 1.8 million units.

Some sites, like Discovery’s Planet Green, have already been playing around with the new OPA ads, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you can do it with a little bit of imagination. Think of a traditional Web ad as the equivalent of a yard sign. The new ones are billboards.

Like your descriptions more literal? Here’s the technical description of the new formats. By way of comparison, the column of text you’re reading now is 350 pixels wide.

The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page.
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency.
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds, rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

And um, here’s what a really big ad might look like on your desktop (click to enlarge).

If you’re knee-deep in the online advertising business, you’ll be interested in why these ad formats are being pushed by the Online Publishers Association instead of the better-known Interactive Advertising Bureau. I have heard some baroque/petty descriptions of squabbling between the two groups, whose membership overlaps but isn’t identical. But maybe we’ll come back to that some other time.

For now, let’s see if these deliver as advertised–that is, whether they get marketers to spend more money on the Web, without just plowing the money into Google (GOOG).

Sources say Time Warner is likely to promote Mark D’Arcy, Partilla’s second in command, to fill his post, which reports into CEO Jeff Bewkes. The company is in the midst of corporate slimdown — it has already spun off its cable business, plans to do the same with AOL, and may end up (finally) doing the same thing with its Time Inc. publishing unit. Here’s the release announcing Partilla’s move:

Clear Channel Names Advertising & Marketing Veteran John Partilla as Corporate EVP and
President, Global Media Sales

Partilla to Lead National Business Development Across
Radio and Outdoor in Newly Created Position

SAN ANTONIO – June 8, 2009 – Clear Channel Communications, Inc. today named John Partilla, 44, to the newly created position of Executive Vice President and President of Global Media Sales. Partilla will lead national business development across the company’s radio and outdoor businesses, reporting to CEO Mark Mays.

“We’ve driven a tremendous increase in the value of our radio and outdoor platforms to national brands over the past five years and now is the time to accelerate and expand our attention to chief marketing officers and brand managers,” said Mays. “John is widely respected as a creative and ‘intrepreneurial’ leader with a deep understanding of client needs. His success in crafting differentiated solutions makes him the ideal strategic sales executive for us at this important time.”

Major brands including Disney, Verizon, Kellog’s and others already engage directly with the company on cross-platform and multi-property ad buys.

Partilla joins Clear Channel from Time Warner, where he lead Time Warner’s Global Media Group in its mission to work with major advertisers and help drive the growth of advertising and marketing revenue across all of Time Warner’s businesses. Prior to overseeing Global Media at Time Warner, John was President at Young & Rubicam, and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Brand Buzz. Launched in 2000, Brand Buzz is an “agency within an agency” at Young & Rubicam designed to provide solutions for smaller advertisers. Partilla spent eighteen years at Young & Rubicam and in that time amassed an extensive roster of strategic sales and brand development experience, having worked across many of the agency’s core accounts.

“We’re entering a new era for advertising and marketing, and the strides that Clear Channel has made in digital platforms across both the radio and outdoor businesses are an outstanding match for the new demands being placed on marketers,” said Partilla. “Realizing that potential will require adding strategic and creative value for our best advertising partners – helping them solve their most critical business problems. The result will be more revenue across all of Clear Channel’s businesses. I’m incredibly excited to begin this new chapter with Clear Channel.”

Partilla, who will be based in New York, holds an MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in Business Administration from University of Delaware.

The six-unit Virgin Megastore chain will close two more stores, the Union Square location in New York City at the end of May and the Market St. store in San Francisco at the end of April, sources say….

In August 2007, the Virgin Entertainment Group North America was acquired by two real estate companies–the Related Cos. and Vornado. Since then, the chain has been reduced from 11 units–with the industry awaiting word of the fate of the three remaining stores in Denver, Los Angeles, and Orlando, Fla.”

At this point the real news should be when people buy music at brick-and-mortar outlets at all. They still do: CD sales continue account for the majority of big music’s revenues.

But as the handful of remaining music stores vanishes, and the big boxes like Wal-Mart (WMT) and Best Buy (BBY) keep cutting back the space they allot to discs, that won’t remain true for long.

Last June, a Vornado executive told Reuters that the store would shut down in the first quarter of 2009. The decision to close the store appears related to real estate and the value connected to the location. That executive was quoted as saying that Virgin pays only $54 per square-foot when the market rent in the area is about $700 a square foot.

So, while the store, which does an estimated $55 million in annual volume, is profitable to the tune of $6 million, according to sources, the space would be even more profitable for its owner with a higher rent tenant. Vornado bought the 180,000 square foot retail component of the Bertelsmann building, which houses the Times Square store, in 2006, and will lease the space to Century 21, according to reports.

The closure leaves the Virgin chain with five stores, and one of them, the Union Square store in New York, will now be the city’s premiere record store, with an estimated $40 million annual volume. But the status of that store is also at question as the Related Cos. and Vornado leased the ground floor of the store to Nordstrom Rack for the holiday season, only to have the deal fall through.”

I get that the decision appears to be “related to real estate,” but it’s really about the health–or lack thereof–of bricks-and-mortar music retail. If the No. 1 store in the country can’t make it, and if New York City’s “premiere record store” rented out a floor during the peak sales season, then why is anyone bothering to sell CDs in stores, period?

Plenty of retail executives seem to be asking themselves the same question, and are responding by cutting the small space they’ve devoted to CDs even further. The exceptions: Special promotions for exclusive albums, like Wal-Mart’s (WMT) successful push for the new AC/DC album last year, and Best Buy’s (BBY) unsuccessful gambit with Guns N’ Roses.

[Image Credit: Troshy]