Music merchandisers weren’t sharing the general optimism of most retailers during Thanksgiving weekend.

Digital music sales account for 18 percent of the U.S. music market and that figure will grow to 41 percent in five years, Forrester Research said in a report released on Monday.

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) — YouTube, the video-sharing Web site owned by Google Inc. , announced an online classical-music contest whose winners will gather at New Yorks Carnegie Hall and perform a specially written orchestral work.