ITV's Downton Abbey festive special proved to be the most popular Christmas Day show on Twitter, despite only managing seventh spot in terms of TV audience, according to new figures. The drama topped a league table measuring the buzz on Twitter about Christmas Day TV shows based on a combination of sentiment, social engagement and volume of tweets.

Over the past year copyright holders have worked hard to stop The Pirate Bay from operating, but without success. Despite several domain changes and ISP blockades in various countries the resilient torrent site keeps on growing. This growth is reflected in the number of uploaded torrents, which increased by 50% over the past year. The Pirate Bay now lists over 2.8 million files, with video being the most shared content.

After five years of decline, sales of entertainment products such as music, films and video games were growing again last year because of booming digital services such as Netflix and Spotify, according to figures published on Wednesday. The surge in popularity of watching TV and films on the likes of Netflix, Amazon's LoveFilm and Apple's iTunes fuelled a 40% increase in spending on digital videos with downloads, streams and subscriptions rising to GBP621m, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.

News UK, part of News Corp, has announced the appointment of Alan Hunter as head of digital at The Times and The Sunday Times. Hunter previously held the role of executive managing editor at the titles, and has also served as news editor, focus editor and deputy sports editor at The Sunday Times. Prior to joining The Times and The Sunday Times in 2001 Hunter spent time with Tatler and Inside Sport, serving as deputy chief sub-editor and deputy editor respectively.

Sky Sports has reported a six per cent increase in audience for the first half of the football season as its battle with new rival BT Sport continues. Overall for 2013, the service reported a 12 per cent rise in sport coverage with 55,000 hours broadcast across six channels and Sky 3D, and a record 30 million unique browsers a month on Sky Sports online from mobile and tablet devices.