 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by the The on behalf of the music industry. The chart week starts on Monday, with the chart being compiled on Sunday afternoon. Correspondingly, most UK singles are released in record shops on a Monday. The main chart contains the top 200 singles (although only the top 40 are generally of interest), and uses only sales figures. No airplay statistics are used for the official Top 200.
The Top 40 is currently, and always has been, sold to BBC Radio 1, who broadcast all the songs from the Top 40, in reverse order, on Sundays from 4-7PM. Mark Goodier and Bruno Brookes are famous for having been the presenters of this chart show for many years, but in 2003 he was replaced by relative newcomer Wes Butters.
The first British singles chart was published in the November 14, 1952 edition of the New Musical Express. It was at first little more than a gimmick, a tool in the circulation war against NME's much older (and more popular) rival Melody Maker. The chart, at first a top 12, was the creation of the paper's advertising manager, Percy Dickins, who compiled it by telephoning around 20 major record stores and aggregating their sales reports. He would continue to personally oversee the compilation of the chart well into the 1960s.
The chart rapidly became one of the paper's most popular features. After only a few weeks, it started being quoted in record company advertisements and press releases. The chart also spawned imitators - Record Mirror launched its own chart in 1955 and Melody Maker in 1958.
The forerunner of today's official chart first appeared in the music trade publication Record Retailer (now Music Week) in 1960 as a Top 50, but was not immediately recognised as the definitive chart in the country. Arguably, the NME chart was still the most recognised chart, and had the advantage of widespread exposure due to its use by Radio Luxembourg. Throughout the sixties, the various different charts vied for public recognition, leading to some historical anomalies - for example, The Beatles' second single "Please Please Me" was a number one on most charts, but not in Record Retailer. To add to the confusion, the chart used by the BBC on their popular shows Pick of the Pops and Top Of The Pops was actually calculated by averaging out all the others, and so didn't agree with any of them, and was prone to to tied positions.
It wasn't until 1969 that a truly reliable, official chart emerged, from an alliance between the BBC and Record Retailer. For the first time a professional polling organisation, BMRB, was commissioned to oversee the chart, and a pool of 500 record shops was used - more than twice as many as had been used for any previous chart. The new Official Top 50 was inaugurated in the week ending 12 February 1969.
In 1978, the singles chart was extended from a Top 50 to a Top 75.
In 1982, BMRB lost their contract to Gallup, who arranged for electronic data gathering to replace the old sales diary method of compilation. The first chart terminals appeared in record shops in 1984. As a result, in October 1987, it was now possible for the chart, incorporating sales up to close of business on Saturday, to be announced on Sunday afternoon, rather than being delayed until Tuesday as was previously the case.
In order to qualify for inclusion in the UK singles chart, a single must meet the following criteria:
The full chart regulations also place limits on how chart singles can be packaged and what free gifts can be offered to purchasers. The full regulations can be downloaded from the Official UK Chart Compnay website or obtained by post from them.
The record industry place a fair amount of importance on the UK singles chart. Music singles are mostly sold as a way of promoting the artist's album - the singles themselves usually make a loss. A single that charts in a high position, or makes it to number 1, is therefore good advertising for the album. Sometimes stickers are even placed on the album mentioning the popular singles.
Because the record industry is mostly interested in the highest position which a single reaches, there is usually a wave of promotion of the single before it comes out, in the hope that people rush out to buy the single in its first week of release. This means that most singles enter the charts at a certain position, and then fall down the chart in subsequent weeks. Singles that climb the charts and spend a number of weeks at a high position are rare, and usually denote 'super' singles, which manage to enter the public consciousness and appeal to a wide range of people.
An effect of this competition for high chart positions is that a number of high-profile "battles" have taken place in which singles released on the same day have become the focus of media attention concerning which will sell the most copies in their first week and therefore enter the chart higher. The first and most famous example was in August 1995 when the Britpop groups Oasis and Blur released their respective singles "Roll With It" and "Country House" on the same day. The outcome was that "Country House" entered the chart at number one, and "Roll With It" at number 2, and the rivalry was widely reported in the mainstream news media. Another high-profile battle occurred in 2000, when "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)" by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor beat "Out Of Your Mind" by Truesteppers featuring Dane Bowers and Victoria Beckham to the number one position. On this occasion the main media interest was in the supposed rivalry between the featured female vocalists on the two records. On both occasions, the press and TV coverage is generally believed to have increased sales for all parties.
There has been much controversy over the fact that the UK Singles Chart has, for many years, been sponsored by various companies. This in itself would be umremarkable were it not for the fact that the chart is broadcast exclusively on BBC Radio 1, a public owned radio station which cannot sell advertising or sponsorship. The singles chart sponsorship is, however, sold by the Official UK Charts Company, and so the BBC does not receive any money from the deal. They have, in the past, mentioned the name of the sponsors when doing the chart rundown and this has in effect allowed the sponsors to do indirect advertising on a publicly owned radio station.
For many years the chart was sponsored by worldpop.com, a music website. However, in 2004, Coca Cola became the sponsors of the chart instead. For a while, the BBC continued the practise of mentioning the sponsoring company during the chart show, however there was a huge backlash against this - partly caused by controversy elsewhere over allowing sugary/fatty foods and drinks to be advertised to children.
The BBC initially stuck to its guns, but eventually came to an agreement whereby the name would be dropped from its on-air broadcast. The name is still mentioned, however, in small print on their .
Most number ones:
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
