I'd say your estimations aren't far off.

Unfortunately no :( However I estimate that it would have exceeded 31,000 on 23rd September, and I would assume 32,000+ on 30th September although I still don't know if it charted that week or not.

 

Thanks ^_^

40,000 is manageable by year end.

We have around 12 weeks left for the year so id hope on average they can manage 500 weekly when balanced out that would see it around the 40k, some discounts would bulk up 1 or 2 weeks but with nothing happening there is nothing to sell it.

PC

 

62.(42) Scotland

51.(43) Sales chart

Any info on Scottish chart this week?

Oh I just saw in chart thread 62. God bless Scotland!

Me too! Hopefully it got at least a 6th week.

The Scotland chart run is the best one they have had, if only it managed it in the UK chart.

Firstly I'm fully aware that this post of mine is going to come across as being a bit of a "rain on your parade" moment, and by all means it's nice to be pleased with their positions in Scotland, but I have to be honest about my own feelings - the Scottish chart means very little to me when context is applied to what it truly represents, sales wise.

 

As we know it's a pure sales chart, i.e. no streaming. The Scottish chart is bound to be predominantly made up of physical sales (taking into account that download sales throughout the UK are on the low side, so it stands to reason that Scotland's contribution would be particularly low).

 

In the charts data I sometimes receive, the spreadsheet splits the physical sales into separate regions of the UK. Unfortunately the download sales data is bunched together in one column as UK sales - so you don't get to see how many downloads an album sold in Scotland only.

 

Anyway, Platinum Collection sold 19,496 physicals throughout the UK in its first week. 1,320 of those sales were achieved in Scotland, which means that under 6.8% of their physical sales that week came from Scotland.

 

In the week Platinum Collection was #1 in Scotland, the #62 in Scotland was Harry Styles' debut album. It sold 28 physicals there that week. Throughout the UK, 'Harry Styles' sold 26 downloads that week. As I said, Scottish only download data isn't known. If we just assume that 6.8% of its download contribution came from Scotland, then that would work out as 2 downloads sold there. Let's just say for the sake of argument that Harry's album sold 30 copies to place at #62 in the Scottish chart that week. Therefore, presumably that's around how much Steps' album sold in Scotland last week. 30 copies!

 

If you go purely by chart positions, then sure, #62 in Scotland appears to be so much better than it (presumably) not being Top 200 in the UK. However to be #200 in the UK, you generally need to sell at least 850 copies (sometimes nearer 900). As we know, streaming is a dominant factor when it comes to the UK charts. If streaming data was actually included in the Scottish chart, I assume that Steps wouldn't be Top 100 there at this stage.

 

Basically comparing the Scottish chart with the UK chart is like comparing apples and oranges. It's a bit surface level to interpret #62 in Scotland = better than not being Top 200 in the UK. It's just a very different measure.

 

Even if you directly compare the Scottish chart with the UK sales chart, which is the closest comparable chart in terms of what they actually represent.... Steps were at #51 in the UK sales chart, with probably around 400 sales, which suggests that contributions from a different region of the UK were a bit better than Scotland's contribution.

I totally get it as I'd say the Scottish chart and irish chart have similar sales or fairly close. Obviously a UK top 100 would be the ideal chart to be on as it would mean at least 1k sales. The only good thing about the Scotland result is its still showing on the chart and all the sales are probably physicals.

Radio 2 Playlist Support

 

[C-B-A-A-B] Light Up the World [A List: 2 weeks / B List: 2 weeks / C List: 1 week = 5 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A-A] Scared of the Dark [A List: 5 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A-A] Story of a Heart [A List: 5 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A] Neon Blue [A List: 4 weeks]

 

[b-B-B-B] Dancing with a Broken Heart [b List: 4 weeks]

 

[b-A-A-A-A] What the Future Holds [A List: 4 weeks / B List: 1 week = 5 weeks]

 

[b-B-B-B] Something in Your Eyes [b List: 4 weeks]

 

[b-A-A-A] To the Beat of My Heart [A List: 3 weeks / B List: 1 week = 4 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A] Heartbreak in This City [A List: 4 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A-A] Take Me for a Ride [A List: 5 weeks]

 

[A-A-A-A] The Slightest Touch [A List: 4 weeks]

 

[b-A-A] A Hundred Years Of Winter (F9 Remix) [A List: 2 weeks / B List: 1 week = 3 weeks]

 

[b-B-B-B] Hard 2 Forget [b List: 4 weeks]

 

 

Radio 2 Total Play Counts (Last.fm) - Data since April 2006

 

118 - Scared of the Dark [including: 3 - Radio 2 Live 2021 / 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017 / 1 - Radio 2 Live in Hyde Park 2017]

93 - Story of a Heart [including: 9 - 7th Heaven Radio Mix / 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017]

92 - Heartbreak in This City

85 - What the Future Holds [including: 3 - Radio 2 Live 2021 / 1 - Cahill Radio Edit]

82 - Take Me for a Ride [including: 4 - Radio 2 Live 2021]

71 - To the Beat of My Heart [including: 1 - Radio 2 Session, 12 Feb 2021]

66 - The Slightest Touch

59 - Neon Blue [including: 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017]

56 - Light Up the World

51 - A Hundred Years of Winter

46 - Hard 2 Forget

43 - Something in Your Eyes

35 - Dancing with a Broken Heart

 

Older:

64 - Tragedy [including: 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017]

30 - 5,6,7,8

30 - Stomp [including: 4 - Radio 2 Live 2021 / 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017 / 1 - Radio 2 Session, 12 Feb 2021]

29 - Deeper Shade of Blue [including: 5 - Radio 2 Live 2021 / 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017]

28 - One for Sorrow [including: 5 - Radio 2 Live 2021 / 1 - BBC Proms in the Park 2017]

13 - Last Thing on My Mind

9 - Chain Reaction [including: 4 - Radio 2 Live 2021]

7 - Better the Devil You Know

6 - Love's Got a Hold on My Heart

3 - It's the Way You Make Me Feel

2 - Heartbeat

2 - Summer of Love

2 - Words Are Not Enough

1 - After the Love Has Gone

1 - Better Best Forgotten

 

Other:

5 - Dancing Queen

2 - Living in a Lie

2 - No More Tears on the Dancefloor

2 - Wasted Tears

1 - Firefly

1 - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

1 - History Is Made at Night

1 - I Will Love Again

1 - Overjoyed

 

Strikes me as being interesting that Radio 2 weren't as enthused by Something in Your Eyes as other Steps singles. Out of all their singles since the comeback, only Dancing with a Broken Heart was played less. One of only three they decided not to give A List exposure (Dancing with a Broken Heart and Hard 2 Forget being the other two that stalled on the B List).

 

That level of support for Light Up the World is rather surprising! Also interesting that the song actually moved down the playlist. I don't pay a huge amount of attention to the playlist threads, but it does seem that most songs leave the playlist from the highest playlist they were included in (which is the case for every 2017-2022 Steps single).

 

Radio 2 isn't hugely supportive of their 1997-2001 singles bar a few exceptions. Since they started to keep track of the songs they play, they've never played Say You'll Be Mine, When I Said Goodbye, Here and Now, You'll Be Sorry & I Know Him So Well. Rather surprisingly the 3 plays of It's the Way You Make Me Feel didn't happen until 2022.

 

 

It probably comes as no surprise that Radio 1 has almost completely ignored Steps. Their data also begins from April 2006:

 

22 - Tragedy

8 - 5,6,7,8

2 - Stomp

1 - Deeper Shade of Blue

1 - It's the Way You Make Me Feel

1 - Scared of the Dark

What was Steps' Radio 1 support like during their first tenure?

What was Steps' Radio 1 support like during their first tenure?

 

That would be so interesting to know actually!

I'd love to know that information too - not sure if we have an archive for that? I'm not sure where to look anyway!

 

Radio Airplay Peaks

 

Steps - first time around (Top 50)

N/A - 5,6,7,8

#25 - Last Thing on My Mind

#29 - One for Sorrow

#10 - Heartbeat

N/A - Tragedy

#23 - Better Best Forgotten

#32 - Thank ABBA for the Music

#22 - Love's Got a Hold on My Heart

N/A - After the Love Has Gone

#26 - Say You'll Be Mine

N/A - Better the Devil You Know

#32 - Deeper Shade of Blue

N/A - When I Said Goodbye

#49 - Summer of Love

#39 - Stomp

N/A - It's the Way You Make Me Feel

N/A - Here and Now

N/A - You'll Be Sorry

#48 - Chain Reaction

N/A - Words Are Not Enough

N/A - I Know Him So Well

 

Steps - the comeback (Top 100)

N/A - Light Up the World (not Top 50)

#27 - Scared of the Dark

#27 - Story of a Heart

#32 - Neon Blue

#54 - Dancing with a Broken Heart

#26 - What the Future Holds

#42 - Something in Your Eyes

#25 - To the Beat of My Heart

#12 - Heartbreak in This City

#13 - Take Me for a Ride

#17 - The Slightest Touch

#16 - A Hundred Years of Winter

#42 - Hard 2 Forget

 

Interesting that 2 weeks on Radio 2's A List wasn't enough for Light Up the World to crack the airplay Top 50

I'm assuming that Radio 2's audience weighting for the radio airplay chart has become a bit stronger recently, re: their WTFH Pt. 2 singles all going Top 20.

 

Solo (Top 50)

N/A - All H & Claire singles

N/A - Faye's single with Russell Watson

#17 - Lately [Lisa] (other singles didn't go Top 50)

#48 - Shame on You [Claire] (other singles didn't go Top 50)

 

Lisa's debut single performed better on radio than almost every Steps classic single!!

 

 

 

So... back in the day, radio was kind of cold towards them!

 

Wow at Heartbeat being their one and only airplay Top 10.

 

It makes you wonder if Steps would have achieved even better sales than they did if radio had been more on their side. I'm assuming that TV airplay was much better for them, while television/magazine promotion must have done so much heavy lifting in helping them be the success they were.

 

While looking through the airplay archives I noticed that S Club 7's Reach only peaked at #27. So it wasn't just Steps who weren't hugely supported in terms of pure pop acts. It's strange that the people in charge of radio stations didn't want to heavily support such popular artists. Steps demonstrated it time and time again with numerous Top 5 hits, fantastic album sales and record breaking tours. Shame!

What about TV airplay? Did that fare better for them?

What about TV airplay? Did that fare better for them?

I'm pretty sure that this information isn't available :cry: The oldest TV airplay information I've managed to find starts from 2003.

Ah that’s a shame :(

I thought radio was kinder to them than they were back in the day, if they been more supportive they could have been even more successful were they any kinder to s club 7?

Those N/As in the radio airplay history are definitely missing the chart altogether and not because the information isn't available?

 

I'm pretty gobsmacked if so.