Out of curiosity, is there any evidence to suggest that the exposure of higher chart positions for unaffected songs actually has a tangible impact on their reach? I guess I can believe it with songs that artificially reach #1, but by that point they've reached #1 so who cares? I just think of the fact that "Feel It Still" reached the top 40 last year, which it obviously wouldn't have done if not for ACR shifting other songs down, but then the powers that be decided that it wasn't allowed to be a hit yet until several months later. Maybe it matters here where a disproportionate amount of people keep up with the charts compared to the GP, but overall it just feels like making songs have higher chart peaks for the sake of having higher chart peaks.

Three year rule does seem very unfair to songs boosted by ads etc. Well-loved songs too, look at Fleetwood Mac Everywhere's cute pony ad and Birdy's Wings horse ad too.

 

Of course I wouldn't put it past them to invent some kind of 'advert exception' if it suits to get the kind of chart/NOW CD they want.

What exactly is the point of a three year rule? To stop the odd novelty song and make the Christmas chart less festive?

We could start a petition? Label it as official charts company's war vs Christmas and I bet it would FLY round social media.

Yeah I don't think so, the GP really don't have as much interest in the charts as you think now

Just received this reply from the OCC:

 

 

The 3 year reset restriction does not prevent older Christmas tracks entering to top end of the Official Singles Chart, but it does stop seasonal activity flooding the Official Chart

 

As an example, in week 52 last year there were 8 Christmas tracks in the Top 10 and 13 in the top 20

 

Under the new rules there would have been 3 in the Top 10 and 8 in the Top 20

 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me

 

 

 

Just received this reply from the OCC:

The 3 year reset restriction does not prevent older Christmas tracks entering to top end of the Official Singles Chart, but it does stop seasonal activity flooding the Official Chart

 

As an example, in week 52 last year there were 8 Christmas tracks in the Top 10 and 13 in the top 20

 

Under the new rules there would have been 3 in the Top 10 and 8 in the Top 20

 

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me

This sounds reasonable and shows why it shouldn't be a massive problem, if many people are buying a song/listening to it then it'll chart! Before streaming there were Christmas songs in the chart but 8 out of the top 10 were not old Christmas songs every year, they had the odd few with the current hits in there because most people already had the old songs.

 

It's not like certain factors haven't stopped old songs from being as high as they could be in the past like for example a physical single eventually got deleted which meant it dramatically fell down the chart due to shops running out of stock (I think Bryan Adams got deleted basically the week after his famous long stint at #1 :lol: ) and no one ever called for second hand shop sales to count either. But the thing is beforehand once someone bought a song that was it! So a song could be the most listened to song but be way down the chart due to the fact that most people who wanted it had it! This meant it could just count every sale and they didn't need to do anything else but if it just had a free for all on streaming then we might end up with 20+ non-movers every week, five number ones a year and chart runs like 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3-3-3-3 etc. People would not want to listen to that every week as they'd be tired of the same songs when they want to hear what the most popular NEW songs are which is what the official chart is mostly about.

 

At least most weeks of recent times the biggest selling song has been #1 so I'd say that the songs at the top have reflected popularity. I wonder if this might help get some surprise entries in the chart in time and then maybe those songs might get greater exposure because of that factor which certainly might help make people who aren't as addicted to the chart as we all are more interested in it.

There goes any hope of Mariah finally getting Christmas number 1