Graham A

I think one of the main TV channels should bring back the ITV Chart Show. It used to have various charts not just the singles chart. That would open up the newer records a bit more. Alternative to that would be a Top of The Pops style show where all the acts performing are doing new songs, not currently in the chart. With perhaps a brief rundown of the top ten and a full play of the number one.

There's another problem with the album chart, that of streaming being added to an album that is no longer available for example in the current top 100: 79 System Of A Down ~ System Of A Down OCC site gives the 2011 box set catalogue number, but this box set is not on streaming sites and the box set itself is not available elsewhere. What the OCC doing is assigning any tracks that are being streamed from other albums by the group and counting them towards this album. Which no-one can actually buy or stream itself, apart from second-hand on e-bay, which doesn't send info to the OCC. They have also done this with other artists, such as Michael Jackson. Whose album sales were boosted with streams added to them, which were from different albums added to one album that has the same tracks on it.

ACR is just the chart company fiddling the figures. When Facebook told the public to stream a record just to get it to the top, the OCC limited the amount of streams any member of the public can have. So the OCC does the same just to get another record to the top. Ignoring the fact that on Spotify 4 million streams has the number one record, but the record at number two there has 2 million streams, but automatically becomes number one because of ACR. Plus the number one record that has spent 10 weeks at the top suddenly dives to 16 in the chart.

When you consider Rein Me In record-breaking run, it's odd because it's not an outstanding record. Basically an 80s power ballad and not a good one at that! Other big number ones had a gimmick or publicity to them. Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet's long runners had film scores top, Queen had the video. But Rein On Me is there for no reason at all. It's background music while someone does the ironing.

People blamed downloads for killing the charts too, but they actually made them more realistic. With some record gripping the nation and the record in the chart within hours of it happening. But streaming doesn't do that. Take a TV advertisement featuring a song. Download buyers pick up on it, streaming ignores it. If you compare the UK and USA Spotify charts you see the real source of streaming effect. The fiddling to rig the playlists on streaming sites. It is just the latest way to hype records. Because the iTunes chart is updated hourly it's faster than other chart and therefore any event will be picked up quick and soon becomes the number one record, reported by the media too.

The way around the mess is to introduce a Retail Sales Chart. This is based on the amount the public pay for music rather than the numbers of copies sold. Some streaming sites charge the user more than other sites per month than others. Some users might only be paying less than £0.001p a stream. For example at the rate the Spotify number 10 record would have only sold a total of £1,557.41p. The OCC know who is streaming the records and what they pay for them. So rather than saying as the do at present, that a certain streaming level equals one sale (sales equivalent stream) they count the price the user pays. Then we have the download and physical sales. So you count the retail price of these. So £0.99p etc. If the record company makes a physical record that is expensive. Say a £60 7-inch. (overpriced records) then the artist royalty is used for the sales of the record. The threshold being set by agreement between record companies and the chart compilers. There would be no need to have ACR at all. I believe advert funded streams should be eliminated, but that is just my personal opinion. The OCC can't tell the streaming sites to change how they operate. But they can change how the charts are compiled. The other charts the OCC (except the streaming) are full of new entries, but these records don't have the numbers of the sales equivalent streams. However, they are more expensive than streams. For example 600 records at £3.99p would bring in £2,394.00p. Easily beating the Spotify stream of the number 10 record. But 600 units sold would not put it in the current top 100.

But there wouldn't be. Only Spotify show streaming figures, the rest don't. The OCC only count lots of people who stream the records a number of times. A large fan base and I am not talking about the likes of Taylor or Sheeran fan bases, can never stream enough copies to make the units needed to make the chart. The way the OCC counts streaming has done away with small fan bases to effect the charts, plus the dead artist effect too. The best way to demonstrate the effect of streaming is to listen the Now series. Now 121, for example, to me sounded like a bunch of Ed Sheeran wannabes for the males and Taylor Swift for the women. Even Robbie Williams was like that too!

The effect must have been strong for the recent Chris Rea passing. It seems fans of his might have been downloading his songs. But any fans streaming songs cannot have the same effect. Since no individual can stream a record to make one OCC unit. It's odd that a Netflix show can put old songs in the chart, but the death of a beloved artist can not do it.

Yes. That does seem to me to a bit unfair. I remember when the likes of Elvis died and David Bowie past away, the chart having loads of tracks in it. Perhaps the Chart compilers never took that into consideration when making the rule. I do know that a chart is compiled which does not have the three track rule applied. But that is for industry insiders only.

Does the 3 track rule apply to dead artists?

They are not exactly keen on people knowing the numbers of copies sold. Or the breakdown. Even this site knows that in full

I suppose that what really got up the record companies noses was the fact that when records were released after weeks of airplay, it didn't stop some session musicians bringing out the same track being played by a well known artist as a download. Which lead to these "crap" covers making the charts. The record company had no choice but to release the original earlier than it should have been, to kill off the cover version!

A more expensive album would also be limited by the people that can afford to buy it. But a cheaper album will also sell more copies, in the reverse of that. Budget priced albums as far as I know are not allowed in the album charts. But under this system, selling more copies doesn't mean a higher position, so they can be included. iTunes also discounts track downloads, selling them at 59p rather than 99p. This can affect the chart position selling more tracks as it is cheaper. But that affect is limited by the Retail Price Chart. One thing the Retail Price chart does is put back the public back into contributing to streaming and making the chart. At the moment, nobody can solo get a sale on streaming, whereas if you download or buy a physical copy you count as one unit sale. Since the chart would count all streaming and then assign the payment to what the user pays. The current chart is acting like streaming is a digital download of 99p, adjusting the number of streams as the service grows. Thus making it look like that streams never existed. As more people streamed, they even adjusted the levels down so that it wouldn't look like massive amounts of units were being consumed. Since Spotify actually produces a list of the weekly streams for the UK, you might be interested to see how the price relates to the streams. Based on the £0.005p figure. The Number One = £15,076.30p 100 = £3,753.64p Of course these figures could go up or down, if Spotify include advertisement funded tracks, or higher rate households. Not certain how you would define the price of add funded streams?

I have mentioned this as an option on UKMIX, but for those not connected with that forum, I will explain more here. Firstly, it would be up to the OCC to do this, but I believe they could do it. It could be done as an extra chart even! The first thing is that sales would stop being based on UNIT sales, but on the retail price the public pays for each unit. This is fairly straightforward when it comes to most formats, but more difficult for streaming. So instead of one download sale, it would be 0.99p or if they are reduced in price that price per unit. The same with 7- inch singles, 12- inch singles, cassettes etc. So if a 7-inch single is selling for £15.99p then it would count at that and not one unit as at present. Now you can begin to see the difference. So ten downloads would only achieve sales of £9.90p. Where's the one 7- inch at £15.99 would easily beat them! As I said, streaming is more difficult. Since you have to work out what everyone pays for each stream. I suppose that would have to be agreed between the streaming services and the OCC, or the BPI. Nevertheless, I do have a way of doing it. So if a streaming service charges each customer £10.99p per month. According to one website, the average stream per household is 2,000 per month. So if you divide these figures, it comes in at £0.005495p per stream. Or simply £0.005p. The OCC would have to be supplied with the streams for each price range. And the average streams per household would have to be agreed on. The albums could also be done in the same way. I think the impact there would be greater than on the singles charts, since vinyl albums go for much greater money than a CD or download. I have been monitoring the OCC sales for the last few months. With the figures Alan Jones gives us, when he breaks the down into the units, I can tell you that I don't think Alex Warren would have even made the top, since he has only been on streams and downloads and that generally is not enough to make a record top. For example, on the 2 May: (55) Oasis - 7,620 at £13.99p = £106,603.80p (1) Alex - streams = £33,551.50p + Downloads = £2,118.60p A Retail Sales chart would end the need for ACR, as streaming would not get its way all the time. Meanwhile, the physical singles would make the top 100 even selling low numbers of units, due to the higher price the public pays for such units. You only have to look at the OCC's own physical chart to see that records in the top ten are not making the 100. By the way, the Retail Sales is not the same as what an artist gets.

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.