NEW YORK - David Cook's "American Idol" win is already paying dividends on the music charts.
The 25-year-old singer raked in 942,000 digital downloads in just a week, according to figures released Thursday by Nielsen SoundScan. The numbers are from the week ending Sunday. Runner-up on the Fox show, David Archuleta, amassed 323,000 downloads in the same period. The next closest "Idol" contender was Jason Castro, with 64,000 downloads.
Cook, from Blue Springs, Mo., last week defeated the 17-year-old Archuleta of Murray, Utah, by a margin of 12 million votes out of the record 97.5 million cast by viewers.
He wasn't the only one whose downloads jumped markedly. George Michael, Carrie Underwood and ZZ Top all saw huge increases in downloads after making guest appearances on the show.
Cook plans to release an album this fall.
