Now on Magic (Sky 363) and no.79 has just been on which was Let Looses' "Crazy For You" yet it said it had only sold 365,000 copies, I had always thought it had sold around 500,000 and I've just checked wikipedia and it says it sold 506,000 (8th biggest-seller of 1994) so can someone tell me why these countdowns have different sales for the same song. :blink:

Edited June 11, 201114 yr by gagafan

It's complicated because the figures the OCC use now are "DUS" Figures (defined sales universe) instead of the figures that were used at the time. In the olden days the charts used "multipliers" as it could not track every sale of every single so it would multiply up from the singles "Panel sales". In short the charts used to operate on panel sales which were the singles sold in about 250 shops then multiplied to cover the entire market. This "multiplier" changed over time to reflect the amount of outlets that sold records. So one sale would equal 17 sales for example nationwide.

 

The figures for 1994-1996 (when Millward Brown took over from Gallup in compiling the charts) have been revised down around 2002 as the OCC decided that the multiplier that was used at the time was considered too generous. This is the same for albums. Let Loose actually sold about 495K in reality (or using the method they used at the time) so Wiki is wrong (surprise surprise) but when you now get figures from OCC they will be lower than the figures they used back then.

 

It's a complicated explanation but I Hope it makes sense..... :D

I don't get why they don't just change the multiplier rather than quote figures which are clearly wrong.

I think because they have now have no way of knowing what the market was back in 1994-96 as they don't seem to have decided on this reduced figures until 2002, so much safer to stick with "DUS" because this is safer. Maybe they were right but I Suspect that the "right" sales are actually somewhere in between the two figures!

It's complicated because the figures the OCC use now are "DUS" Figures (defined sales universe) instead of the figures that were used at the time. In the olden days the charts used "multipliers" as it could not track every sale of every single so it would multiply up from the singles "Panel sales". In short the charts used to operate on panel sales which were the singles sold in about 250 shops then multiplied to cover the entire market. This "multiplier" changed over time to reflect the amount of outlets that sold records. So one sale would equal 17 sales for example nationwide.

 

The figures for 1994-1996 (when Millward Brown took over from Gallup in compiling the charts) have been revised down around 2002 as the OCC decided that the multiplier that was used at the time was considered too generous. This is the same for albums. Let Loose actually sold about 495K in reality (or using the method they used at the time) so Wiki is wrong (surprise surprise) but when you now get figures from OCC they will be lower than the figures they used back then.

 

It's a complicated explanation but I Hope it makes sense..... :D

 

Thank you for this info :)

Does that mean that some big sellers may of sold quite a considerbale amount less between those years?? Such as Spice Girls??

yes all sales are reduced- "Wannabe" and "2 become 1" have been reduced though it's a sliding scale if you see what I mean so 1994's have been reduced more than 95's, and 95's more than 96's, I'm sure about 100k has been shaved off "Wannabe"

yes all sales are reduced- "Wannabe" and "2 become 1" have been reduced though it's a sliding scale if you see what I mean so 1994's have been reduced more than 95's, and 95's more than 96's, I'm sure about 100k has been shaved off "Wannabe"

 

Hey gezza76 can you check your inbox, I sent you a message but I'm not sure if it was actually sent. :)

yes replied