24 minutes ago, Dobbo said:

Agreed, it's still completely baffling to me that it seems everyone within the music industry has just accepted that Thursday streaming data isn't possible to accurately disclose for whatever reason and some random algorithm is a perfectly fine alternative. Probably cost many past hits a higher peak.

I honestly don't think it makes that big a difference - streaming data doesn't move that fast so it's rare that Thursdays provide anything notably different. Of course, it has on some occasions, though it's usually for hits that are trending upwards and will climb the following week anyway. The only real issues are when notable days like Halloween or Christmas fall on the Thursday and the significant upward spike is missed, and I doubt the industry or the OCC are that bothered about a load of old songs missing out on their yearly boost or we'd have seen some changes by now!

22 minutes ago, Hadji said:

Sundays were better. Fridays chart is terrible and Sundays had more listeners than Fridays and did I say the whole world? Does the UK count as the whole world. Oh dear oh dear. Looks like it’s you that’s hit a new low for saying the whole world instead of the UK

Let's keep it calm everyone - ultimately, you're welcome to your opinion, but there's a difference between your opinion and saying that something should or has to change when ultimately, there's no good reason for it to do so.

1 hour ago, Bjork said:

The OCC could get accurate streams too, they just need to apply some pressure to spotify, who could get the data if they wanted at 00:00:00:01 on Friday.

The difference with the US is that there is no live show reveal, no broadcast.

Citation needed

Spotify don't even update the numbers on their own platform until the following afternoon.

I mean, I work in bioinformatics, to do any kind of analysis, extract any kind of data you want from anywhere

it literally takes 1 nanosecond. If I run a script that says go to the human genome and grab me all the instances of a "GTGC", it takes 1 second.

Yeah a whole streaming day that essentially doesn’t matter is absurd. But everything seems archaic. If a surprise release happens they can’t even adjust a radio 1 playlist till the next week. It’s like a very rigid amateur thing. Spotify numbers surely work non manually so why would it be so difficult to get the full data by 12 midday but they probably want it done by 8am or something so they can inform people I don’t know but the chart should reflect real numbers not guesses.

3 minutes ago, Bjork said:

I mean, I work in bioinformatics, to do any kind of analysis, extract any kind of data you want from anywhere

it literally takes 1 nanosecond. If I run a script that says go to the human genome and grab me all the instances of a "GTGC", it takes 1 second.

Why don't they do it then?

No clue but I'm sure in 2025 any computation can be done in seconds. sure it doesn't take 1 day.

Tuesday, the chart should be run on a Tuesday no real reason I like Tuesday 😁

On 13/07/2025 at 10:54, Dj Cheeky magpie said:

I stay album chart got worst since streaming add to it use get top 20 run down on Sunday now just top 5.

2015 to 2017 was weird singles chart did start after 5pm wired oh summer had summer mag mix 15 bit into show. Or random album track and think 1st 30 min new music only good idea. New format came in because ed Sheeran album took up all top 20 singles. Uk singles not as bad Irish chart even worst over there still prefer Sunday as end of week new music day should been Monday.

The Irish chart uses the same sales week and rules as the UK and is compiled by the OCC..

On 14/07/2025 at 09:52, 777666jason said:

Tuesday, the chart should be run on a Tuesday no real reason I like Tuesday 😁

Well of course, in a sense, in the UK, Tuesday did used to be the chart reveal day, even when the week ran more conventionally from Sunday to Saturday, during the period when the compilers of the chart weren't able to crunch all their data swiftly enough to have a complete new chart prepared for radio broadcast the first day after the close of the survey week, i.e. Sunday. It wasn't available for many years until Tuesday, which would be when the new chart would first be counted down, three days into the week in which it was current, leaving what we all heard on the more detailed, expanded two-hour Sunday show as a catch-up on the week that had just passed, rather than the one ahead. This didn't resolve until October 1987 when computer compilation was such that a reliable chart was finally able to be made available to Radio 1 by Sunday afternoon in time for their main chart show, rendering the old Tuesday lunchtime slot redundant.

I still wonder how many youngsters pre-Oct '87 knew that the chart they were hearing and likely recording selected songs from on Sundays was in fact a week out of date?! Given I was only four when I began listening concertedly to it I'm sure I couldn't have known; it must only have been sometime after I started primary school a year later and heard some people talking about the Tuesday programme that I cottoned on (even then being a schoolchild I was hardly ever able to hear that show live - some might've bunked off in order to do that but I'd never get away with that as my mum was always home and there'd have been hell to pay - I was lucky to be allowed to purloin the hi-fi for two hours on a Sunday!). It does highlight that a Tuesday is a bit of a crap day for a chart reveal broadcast, especially among those still committed to a school regime, but of course nowadays anyone that bothered can just listen to it at their leisure anytime via catch-up services. So as I observed in my earlier post, the actual day of initial broadcast now matters far less, and to far fewer listeners, than it did in my day.

On 12/07/2025 at 20:04, Hassaan said:

It feels strange now to think that a song would be played on the radio for two months before you could even download it, and that was happening into the 2010s as well.

If anything I'm surprised it took so long to implement the whole "song is released at the same time it's heard".

Yeh especially considering that it was only a thing from 1997 onwards.

Also, the old chart shows in the 80s didn’t play every song either!

5 hours ago, Gambo said:

Well of course, in a sense, in the UK, Tuesday did used to be the chart reveal day, even when the week ran more conventionally from Sunday to Saturday, during the period when the compilers of the chart weren't able to crunch all their data swiftly enough to have a complete new chart prepared for radio broadcast the first day after the close of the survey week, i.e. Sunday. It wasn't available for many years until Tuesday, which would be when the new chart would first be counted down, three days into the week in which it was current, leaving what we all heard on the more detailed, expanded two-hour Sunday show as a catch-up on the week that had just passed, rather than the one ahead. This didn't resolve until October 1987 when computer compilation was such that a reliable chart was finally able to be made available to Radio 1 by Sunday afternoon in time for their main chart show, rendering the old Tuesday lunchtime slot redundant.

I still wonder how many youngsters pre-Oct '87 knew that the chart they were hearing and likely recording selected songs from on Sundays was in fact a week out of date?! Given I was only four when I began listening concertedly to it I'm sure I couldn't have known; it must only have been sometime after I started primary school a year later and heard some people talking about the Tuesday programme that I cottoned on (even then being a schoolchild I was hardly ever able to hear that show live - some might've bunked off in order to do that but I'd never get away with that as my mum was always home and there'd have been hell to pay - I was lucky to be allowed to purloin the hi-fi for two hours on a Sunday!). It does highlight that a Tuesday is a bit of a crap day for a chart reveal broadcast, especially among those still committed to a school regime, but of course nowadays anyone that bothered can just listen to it at their leisure anytime via catch-up services. So as I observed in my earlier post, the actual day of initial broadcast now matters far less, and to far fewer listeners, than it did in my day.

Being pedantic, the chart week for many years was Monday to Saturday as there was no Sunday trading until 1994. The big chart reveal for many people in the pre October 1987 Tuesday chart reveal days wasn't necessarily the new chart on a Tuesday lunchtime or the chart recap on a Tuesday late afternoon but most likely when the next recap happened on the Wednesday breakfast show (supposedly with 10m+ listeners) or on Top Of The Pops on a Thursday (again circa 10m viewers). I think by a Sunday most people were likely aware that the chart was a recap, albeit a longer one, timewise. That said, the Sunday top 40 show was supposed to be the most listened to programme on Radio 1. Possibly because there was nothing else to listen to or watch on a Sunday!

I remember the reason for the switch to a Friday Chart date. At the time it was a popular thing for bands and record companies to get fans to buy up the records, thus ensuring often a number one hit. Releasing on Monday for the Sunday chart would do this. However, if records were released on Friday, with the chart on Sunday, it would mean that sales would be reduced and not enough for the number one spot. The Record Industry feared that record companies would have ignored the Friday date and continue to use the Monday date of release to get the record top by Sunday. So they moved the chart to Friday, so they could still get the full week of sales.

Of course, what happened within a short time of its introduction is that the acts that used this system a lot, vanished, plus the sales pattern changed. Where records could climb to the top slowly.