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[Robbie]

According to James Masterton in his weekly Chart Watch UK column a chart rule change happened last week.

Rules And Regulations

The rules governing the singles chart are in a constant state of evolution, a necessity of adapting to the similarly fast-paced evolution of the streaming market and as the industry learns just how best to track online plays as a measure of popularity. The new July 2019 chart rules appeared last week with little pre-fanfare, containing nothing as revolutionary as the ACR rule of 2017 and the addition of YouTube streams in 2018. But there was one subtle change which may well have a far-reaching impact in weeks to come.

As originally codified, it was possible for an ACR relegated single to have its streaming conversion reset, simply by dint of its streams increasing by more than 50% of the market. This rule was originally designed to make it possible for tracks enjoying spontaneous surges of interest to take their place on the charts, but this was rendered more or less obsolete by a subsequent tweak which made this only applicable to tracks less than three years from release. It had become clear that the bar for a reset was simply too high. So the Official Charts Company last week lowered it by half, meaning it now only takes a 25% + market increase in streams for a single to jump out of the relegation zone.

So we may well be about to see chart jumps similar to that experienced this week by Dave with Location. Originally a cut from the rapper's Psychodrama album, the track has already enjoyed an extended chart run, peaking at Number 6 back in April during what turned out to be a six week run inside the Top 10. Five weeks ago that run began to draw to a close, the single dropping 12-36 following an ACR relegation, since when it has hovered around the bottom end of the Top 40. As if out of nowhere, however, this week the track is back. Location rockets 38-13 to effectively rebound to exactly where it was before ACR kicked in. All this in the same week the track finally gained an official video to make it "officially" a single release. As to what qualified it for the reset, I confess I'm not entirely sure. It seems unlikely to have been at the request of the label, by rule such "manual resets" are still only permitted for tracks outside the Top 100. Yet without being able to see the numbers, I cannot discern any surge on last week's streaming chart that would have theoretically qualified Ladbroke Grove for the 25% rule. So for the moment, we are into the realms of guesswork here.

https://chart-watch.uk/index.php/week-ending-july-25th-2019

If this rule change has happened the chart rule would now look something like:

i) Automatic Reset – a track within the Top 100 on ACR and which is within 3 years of release can automatically return to SCR if it’s combined sales and stream total increases by 25 percentage points greater than the market change week on week. For example, a track with a week on week variance of +14%, in a week where market variance is -11%, would be automatically reset.

I guess this means that 'I Don't care' will be back on SCR next week and possibly back to number 1 or 2...

This post has been edited by Robbie: 20th July 2019, 07:45 PM