January 25, 2007, London: The official winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2007 may not be revealed until Sunday night, but sales on Amazon.co.uk are showing that for one of the contestants their appearance on the show has made them a runaway winner, whether they emerge from the house victorious or not. Whilst several of the housemates have benefited from the exposure the hit show has given them, when it comes to sales of their products it is in fact former A-Team star Dirk Benedict who's inspired the public to support their favourite contestant with online orders, leading to Amazon.co.uk having to order extra stock due to customer demand!

Dirk's little known novel Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy: A True Story of Discovery, Acting, Health, Illness, Recovery, and Life has proved the surprise hit of the series. Sales of the 'warts and all' biography on Amazon.co.uk have increased by 2500% since the actor's entry into the house, catapulting the book into the Top 100.

Amazon.co.uk's results show that Celebrity Big Brother drew past contestants into the public's consciousness too - in January 2005 Bez turned sales of Happy Mondays: Greatest Hits around, attaining a 1000% increase over the show's two week period. Mark Owen's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 had a similar effect, with sales of Take That's Greatest Hits shooting up by 300%. However, it's Preston from The Ordinary Boys who benefited most from the Big Brother effect - sales of the band's first album Brassbound soared by 2000%.

This year's contestants have proved an interesting bunch: exactly how interesting has been reflected in their online sales:

IAN ~ Static sales of Ian Watkins' Steps Gold album can easily be attributed to his flying under the radar LEO ~ Leo Sayer's dramatic behaviour earlier in the show increased sales of his Greatest Hits threefold after the pop pixie's early retreat JO ~ Sales of Jo O'Meara's ex-band S Club's Best: the Greatest Hits have also remained static throughout the BB controversy DONNY ~ Little-known London rock band Towers of London benefited from their lead singer Donny Tourette's brief appearance on the show with a 300% increase in sales of their album Blood Sweat in the first week SHILPA ~ In addition to the largely music-fronted house, Shilpa Shetty's popularity has led to a significant increase in sales of Bollywood dolls

While Amazon.co.uk is as much in the dark over the voting for Sunday's final as the rest of the UK, it is interesting to note that sales of The Very Best of the Jackson 5 have increased 500% in the past week, after remaining static during the early stages of the show. These figures would suggest that Jermaine is a late contender for the title, and could surprise the bookies.

"Celebrity Big Brother has come to be known as a show that the public love and adore," comments Kes Nielsen, Head Books Buyer of Amazon.co.uk. "Amazon's customers' buying habits are evidently an indicator of the success of the contestants - and whether Dirk takes the title or not, he's certainly been the stand-out winner when it comes to sales."

For further information please contact the Amazon.co.uk press office on 020 8636 9280.

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