Verizon Wireless saw the number of its music and video downloads increase 16.3% in Q4 of 2008, according to today's press release. That comes out to about 50 million downloads versus 43 million downloads in Q3.

The number of Verizon retail subscribers increased 1.7% to 70 million (which means each subscriber averaged fewer than one download). The number of picture and video messages sent by subscribers increased about 20% to 1.8 billion.

As usual, no information was given on the number of subscribers to its music service. Over-the-air downloads mentioned by Verizon are tracks purchased for $1.99. The Rhapsody-powered VCast music subscription service requires users to transfer subscription tracks and personal music files to the handset from the PC. Subscription tracks cannot be downloaded directly to the handset.