When We Were Young is great but not top 2 great.

Of course people wont stop listening to music. What I mean is that the Official music chart will not be timeless like how the Box Office chart for films is. Nobody has ever f***ed about with the formula for the Box Office chart like they have done so many times with the Official music chart. People in general are losing lot of interest in the music charts but it's not the case for the Box Office chart.

Ah, I see.

 

I could see the Official Charts still being a thing, but it won't be broadcast on radio or featured in the media. Not for a long time though.

Surely the music industry will always need a chart, even if public interest wanes further. Maybe Radio 1 will drop it at some point but I don't see why it would stop existing.

Surely the music industry will always need a chart, even if public interest wanes further. Maybe Radio 1 will drop it at some point but I don't see why it would stop existing.

 

I can see Radio 1 dropping it within a decade.

Edited June 12, 20187 yr by zenon

It would be a shame but radio 1 are clearly losing interest in the chart and they'd probably like to drop it sometime. We'd still have the chart after that though. There are charts all around the world and most of those don't have their own radio chart show (I think?)

The Sun recently stopped publishing the Top 40 Singles chart and have replaced it with a Spotify chart. That must have made a dent in the OCC's finances as well as reducing the visibility of the chart as the paper gets on average about 3 to 3.5 million readers a day which is a higher figure than the amount of listeners to the Radio 1 chart show.

 

The OCC will continue to exist as they are co-owned by record dealers and the BPI so don't actually exist to make a profit. However Radio 1 do seem to be losing some interest in the chart and they provide a large amount of money to help finance the chart. If Radio 1 ever did pull the plug the OCC would have to cut down on what they do. But as the chart becomes increasingly a streaming chart it wouldn't cost as much to produce a Singles chart though the Album chart has become increasingly complex to compile simply because of the amount of retailers who provide sales information. It now stands at over 15,000 which is considerably more than did so a decade ago. Ironically this is in a period where album sales are in seemingly terminal decline.

 

As for what will replace streaming, I don't have a clue. Whatever it is will probably require new technology that either hasn't been invented or is in its infancy. The question is how long will Spotify continue to exist as it has yet to make a profit and it now has shareholders who will be looking for a return on their investment. The service has had goodwill so far as investors have allowed the service to continue while making huge losses but this goodwill may now be sorely tested. Who knows, perhaps Apple Music will buy out Spotify at some point in the future. It certainly has the cash to do so and if that was to happen we may get a better Apple Music service and Spotify will perhaps get the makeover it sorely needs (I love Spotify but the user interface isn't that great with that black background and white text).

 

Incidentally, just to show how far streaming has come in the past decade, it's coming up to 10 years since the first mention I can find of Spotify appeared in Music Week (though I have a feeling it had been mentioned before, in passing). In the issue dated 18 October 2008 mention was made about Spotify signing a licensing deal with Merlin, the independent online rights agency who are the leading rights agency for worldwide independent labels. I believe that most of the major labels were less keen to sign up to licence material to Spotify at the time but by launch date had come on board.

 

Part of the article:

 

Swedish-based Spotify launched last week in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden and simultaneously announced deals with all four majors plus Merlin and the Orchard.

 

Among the Merlin-affiliated companies included in the service from launch are Beggars, Domino, Warp, !K7 and Koch.

 

“Spotify wants to provide the best music service possible to our users,” says Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek. “Therefore we were committed from the beginning to work together with Merlin and others to provide our users with the quality and depth of catalogue we want to be known by.”

 

In the same issue there was a report that Woolworths was in serious financial trouble and that EUK, the Woolies owned record distributor was trying to put a distance between itself and the store. A month later the whole lot went under...

Edited June 12, 20187 yr by Robbie

I think as long as Radio 1 play hits they will continue to have a chart!

I think as long as Radio 1 play hits they will continue to have a chart!

I can remember years ago when Radio 1 would often quote the chart position of a record when they played it. I don't listen to Radio 1 that often but when I do that just never seems to happen anymore. It's an indication of just how unimportant the charts are to Radio 1. Plus the way the Top 40 is just pushed into a much shorter programme than it used to be from May 1978 onwards when the station extended the Top 20 to a Top 40. At just 1 hour 45 minutes it's not given any real prominence though of course that is largely fitting it in to the schedule due to the chart day moving to a Friday and the need to broadcast Newsbeat for 15 minutes before 6pm.

 

Yeh agreed, but sometimes they have sound bytes like 'Radio 1 the biggest hits from your official top 40 station'

The Sun recently stopped publishing the Top 40 Singles chart and have replaced it with a Spotify chart. That must have made a dent in the OCC's finances as well as reducing the visibility of the chart as the paper gets on average about 3 to 3.5 million readers a day which is a higher figure than the amount of listeners to the Radio 1 chart show.

 

The OCC will continue to exist as they are co-owned by record dealers and the BPI so don't actually exist to make a profit. However Radio 1 do seem to be losing some interest in the chart and they provide a large amount of money to help finance the chart. If Radio 1 ever did pull the plug the OCC would have to cut down on what they do. But as the chart becomes increasingly a streaming chart it wouldn't cost as much to produce a Singles chart though the Album chart has become increasingly complex to compile simply because of the amount of retailers who provide sales information. It now stands at over 15,000 which is considerably more than did so a decade ago. Ironically this is in a period where album sales are in seemingly terminal decline.

 

As for what will replace streaming, I don't have a clue. Whatever it is will probably require new technology that either hasn't been invented or is in its infancy. The question is how long will Spotify continue to exist as it has yet to make a profit and it now has shareholders who will be looking for a return on their investment. The service has had goodwill so far as investors have allowed the service to continue while making huge losses but this goodwill may now be sorely tested. Who knows, perhaps Apple Music will buy out Spotify at some point in the future. It certainly has the cash to do so and if that was to happen we may get a better Apple Music service and Spotify will perhaps get the makeover it sorely needs (I love Spotify but the user interface isn't that great with that black background and white text).

See this is the problem I keep pointing out, if no one makes a profit, musicians can't make money and the increased blandification continues and it ends up killing the measure of what is popular music then who wins? They might have to think of something other than the Netflix style model if doesn't look sustainable for music and I question having all of entertainment controlled by monthly fees to the big tech companies like Apple and Amazon (it's not the same as iTunes as artists still made at least a small amount of money despite the big cut they took from it but it's unlikely people would go back to that model again)

 

I think the Chart Show will be fine for now, the fact it's becoming a three hour show again and they have Scott Mills presenting it who is actually really passionate about the charts (as much as I like Greg he didn't seem to care that much) a possible way to fix things is maybe after an individual has played a song so many times that counts as a 'sale' and no further streams count but I don't know if that's doable but the main problem the chart has is that because the streaming chart doesn't move very quick and only certain demographics use it it's very static and certain genres dominate to the point that there are lots of similar sounding songs. You don't get as many exciting battles like we used to (though Jess Glynne vs. Clean Bandit vs Anne Marie is a good 'un this week) and I doubt a 'Somebody That I Used It To Know' or a 'Let It Go' (Passenger) would happen the ways things are right now. They just need it to become less static due to a natural occurance or by another rule change, I notice physical singles are more of a thing again in vinyl shops so it would be a shame if the chart stopped and they became more popular again.

 

Considering that the chart still has a big part in shaping the Radio 1 Playlist I don't think they'll bin it anytime soon as it's still a key staple to their schedule and they haven't done what they did TOTP in sabotaging the format and putting on a date when no one would listen so unless pure sales completely collapse making compiling it too complicated and too boring for listeners I don't think it'll go anywhere just yet. (they nearly binned it in the early 90s due to low sales so if it didn't go then I doubt they'll stop in the immediate future)

Maybe if the issues of artists not being paid enough and the fact no one has made a profit on streaming become a big issue then something like this could be a compromise?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/...g-service-co-op

 

Music subscription service Resonate gives artists both money and power over content with a stream-to-own model

 

Just had a look at this Resonate service and its actually very good.

 

Paying per song you stream with it increasing to the same price as a download over 9 listens and then its free. I doubt this will overtake the streaming giants of Apple and Spotify but if it were ever too or the payment method was adopted, this would be a very good way of measuring streaming towards the chart. As once someone has contributed a full download equivalent it can be exempt from being counted and would have the same affect as ACR on the chart but more gradual without the complicated rules.

 

As to what will replace streaming I'd like to say I doubt anything will as its hard to see what would, but then again I thought the same with downloads about eight years ago. So I'm sure something will come along but comparing streaming to downloads but I do feel like streaming is reaching its peak and will plateau at some point in the next couple of years. I think the only big boost it will get now is if iTunes were to close.

 

Finally I can totally see why Radio 1 would drop the chart as tbh. Streaming has made the chart incredibly static and I honestly dont think its incorporation into the chart is really working very well and ACR hasn't fully solved the problem. Furthermore since they brought in ACR, I've personally lost a lot of interest in the chart itself as it doesn't really represent anything anymore, so even though I don't read the Sun I actually tend to follow the official streaming chart more as I find thats more representative of whats actually popular. Annoyingly they dont have a tab on chart runs for the audio streaming chart sadly.

Kworb keeps chart runs of the Spotify weekly chart, which closely resembles the official streaming chart

 

http://kworb.net/spotify/country/gb_weekly.html

 

you have to click each song individually, and some of the songs that have spent hundreds of weeks in the chart won't have the full chart run available.

I can remember years ago when Radio 1 would often quote the chart position of a record when they played it. I don't listen to Radio 1 that often but when I do that just never seems to happen anymore. It's an indication of just how unimportant the charts are to Radio 1. Plus the way the Top 40 is just pushed into a much shorter programme than it used to be from May 1978 onwards when the station extended the Top 20 to a Top 40. At just 1 hour 45 minutes it's not given any real prominence though of course that is largely fitting it in to the schedule due to the chart day moving to a Friday and the need to broadcast Newsbeat for 15 minutes before 6pm.

 

Though worth pointing out Friday afternoon is a more prominent slot than Sunday. Ratings have gone up a bit since it moved. And the reduction in length of the show was partly down to the chart being slower so playing all 40 records when they barely change week on week is understandable. I don't feel R1 currently want to get rid of it. If they did, they'd have done it already.

See this is the problem I keep pointing out, if no one makes a profit, musicians can't make money and the increased blandification continues and it ends up killing the measure of what is popular music then who wins? They might have to think of something other than the Netflix style model if doesn't look sustainable for music and I question having all of entertainment controlled by monthly fees to the big tech companies like Apple and Amazon (it's not the same as iTunes as artists still made at least a small amount of money despite the big cut they took from it but it's unlikely people would go back to that model again)

 

I think the Chart Show will be fine for now, the fact it's becoming a three hour show again and they have Scott Mills presenting it who is actually really passionate about the charts (as much as I like Greg he didn't seem to care that much) a possible way to fix things is maybe after an individual has played a song so many times that counts as a 'sale' and no further streams count but I don't know if that's doable but the main problem the chart has is that because the streaming chart doesn't move very quick and only certain demographics use it it's very static and certain genres dominate to the point that there are lots of similar sounding songs. You don't get as many exciting battles like we used to (though Jess Glynne vs. Clean Bandit vs Anne Marie is a good 'un this week) and I doubt a 'Somebody That I Used It To Know' or a 'Let It Go' (Passenger) would happen the ways things are right now. They just need it to become less static due to a natural occurance or by another rule change, I notice physical singles are more of a thing again in vinyl shops so it would be a shame if the chart stopped and they became more popular again.

 

Considering that the chart still has a big part in shaping the Radio 1 Playlist I don't think they'll bin it anytime soon as it's still a key staple to their schedule and they haven't done what they did TOTP in sabotaging the format and putting on a date when no one would listen so unless pure sales completely collapse making compiling it too complicated and too boring for listeners I don't think it'll go anywhere just yet. (they nearly binned it in the early 90s due to low sales so if it didn't go then I doubt they'll stop in the immediate future)

 

I'd dispute that Greg didn't care that much - I prefer Scott's more old skool style, but Greg is still a chart fan.

 

By look of things the show isn't going to 3 hours after all btw.

if the show is remaining in its 4:00-5:45 slot are they still replacing Friday Dance Anthems with something else chart related then? do we know what's going on there?

if the show is remaining in its 4:00-5:45 slot are they still replacing Friday Dance Anthems with something else chart related then? do we know what's going on there?

According to the Radio 1 schedules for Friday it will still be Dance Anthems at 6pm.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl86/2018/06/15

Kworb keeps chart runs of the Spotify weekly chart, which closely resembles the official streaming chart

 

http://kworb.net/spotify/country/gb_weekly.html

 

you have to click each song individually, and some of the songs that have spent hundreds of weeks in the chart won't have the full chart run available.

 

Oh lovely thanks for that i'll have a gander :)

If I knew what would replace streaming I would not tell anyone but I would set up a Company to implement the new technology and hopefully become a millionaire.

I can but only dream.

Though worth pointing out Friday afternoon is a more prominent slot than Sunday. Ratings have gone up a bit since it moved. And the reduction in length of the show was partly down to the chart being slower so playing all 40 records when they barely change week on week is understandable. I don't feel R1 currently want to get rid of it. If they did, they'd have done it already.

Indeed, listeners are up after moving it and they haven't even shown any vague signs of getting rid of it and why the hell would they? Can anyone really imagine Radio 1 without the chart? (can you imagine Buzzjack without the chart? I certainly wouldn't be here without chart info :P ) Like I said so much of their playlist is based around it and even though it's never been their most listened to show it is basically what makes it Radio 1. The music industry needs some kind of measurement as to what is currently popular and even though they're trying to adapt to a changing market I can't imagine there being a music industry without it.

 

Again I don't personally understand how people can say the streaming chart is more relevant than the actual chart considering all the songs I picked in 'What do you think are the five biggest hits of the year?' thread all did a lot better in sales! If anything I feel a lot of songs become hits on streaming after I felt the song had been and gone a long ago like Miss You by Clean Bandit for example but then again you could say the opposite about Feel It Still. It's almost like we need the chart needs to be some kind of combination of the two to appease everyone with the way things are right now ;) :P