Graham A

Only because Independent Radio Stations were targeting their individual top 40's at them. Later on the Network Chart was broadcast there and it was faster, the BBC chart audience plummeted, so they increased it. They even dropped the 4.30 news bulletin for fear of losing audience members not interested in Tory propaganda. Radio One will need to build up the audience to convince the target listeners to actually tune in at that time. Friday tea time telly can be tough on Radio. There biggest audience being people driving home. Are they that interested in what's a 24? Since we know it's stopping 15 minutes earlier and the top ten will be played, that will take 40 minutes assuming the average length of a record to be 3.30. I reckon they will play only another 16 records at the most in the time left.

I don't think they can because the countdown might not be ready till after 3pm. Final data would come in after midnight Thursday, then it has to be sorted and checked. Data errors missing data form shops and download sites all need to be sorted out. Streaming data, plus adjustments of various types, means that it's not possible. Radio One would also need time to "produce" the show. Times of records, what to play, phone calls to artists and the rest of the show needs to be sorted out. They simply don't make up the show as they go along. If it could have been broadcast earlier in the day then I think it would have been, by now. I do think they could have broadcast it Saturday between 9am and 12pm, though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the chart show is moved from Friday back to Sunday, or even to Saturday, as I suggest, because I'm certain it will flop at that time and be wiped out by Hit 40 UK.

Why would you start a chart at 4pm Friday when kids are still getting home from school? It kills off most of the audience! Then to have the cheek of putting it on CBBC and thinking that will raise the profile of chart music!! Yes everyone over 15 is going to suddenly tune into the CBBC channel! It will appeal to the young girls who like One Direction and the other boybands and the like, that's all. The other thing that's not being discussed so far here is what will fill the slot currently occupied by the top 40 on a Sunday and compete against the Big Top 40 show, which will be faster and more comprehensive than the top 40 broadcast by Radio One. I really think this is VERY bad move for the BBC and will make the charts less important in the British public's eye. As some of the people on this thread have stated they can't listen to the show or catch only a part of it. We have gone backwards to the days of the top 20 and breakers. It's 2015 BBC!!! Not 1950!!!!

Delta Goodrem has a single out now on Amazon with the same title. Is it the same thing? I believe she will sing it on the 30 years of Neighbours on Channel 5. It will clearly cause some confusion!

In the 50's it was very common for multi versions of the same record in the chart. Simply because of the old publisher system. That worked by song writers going to the music publishers or working inside them instead of recording the song themselves. The music publishers would then go to the labels with the songs for the A&R men to listen too. Often around the same table. In EMI for example a chap from each imprint of the record company would be there. They would say that song could be sung by an artist(s) on there books. With very popular songs nearly all the artists would record it, if they could sing it. Each record company would be approached in this way. There could be as many as 20 recordings or more of a very popular song. The artist would often have little say in what they recorded. The system started to fail when Lennon & McCartney came along. It's likely that the early NME charts excluded some of these versions, because of the way it counted the information. I understand that the NME would phone shops up and ask for say the 20 best sellers. Each shop would supply this list, but the shop didn't list the sales. Instead the number one was given 20 points and the 20 I point. However some records were only sold at dealers of certain labels. If there was not enough of these shops in the sample, there records would not get sufficient points to make the chart. There was no weighting, so if a big branch outsold a certain record by all the other shops taking part, it would only get 20 points for it's number one not say 600 to balance the sample.

In these copyright disputes they often get musicologists in to determine if the copyrights are infringed. I don't know if they did in this case, but the jury would have been given expert opinion on if the record did break the rules. They certainly would not have decided on it from a standpoint that it sounds a bit like it. Many songwriters are hit with these law suits especially after a song they wrote sells a big amount. One of the biggest cases was George Harrisons My Sweet Lord which was a rip off of He's So Fine. The fact that Phil Spector worked with George didn't help and George lost all the money for his record. The problem with this record is that Gaye wasn't alive to give consent. And since his death was traumatic to his family to say the least, anything that tarnishes Gaye's reputation will not go down well with them. Personally I think the record was too close to the Gaye track. Therefore the judgement was probably correct. This has not stopped the public downloading the two tracks and they are both back in the iTunes charts!

The Official Chart is compiled by the Music Industry so it's highly dubious. It's not a fair reflection of what people are buying and it is certainly not a fair reflection of what people are streaming. It's a controlled chart based on a set of rules that the Music Industry is changing all the time. In the past people were buying EP's so the Industry blocked them. Then imported CD's, the Industry allowed them, but when the record was released in the UK it was a new entry and the imports cancelled out. People were buying lots of different formats, so then the Industry stepped in again to and reduced the formats eligible for the charts. But when downloads were excepted by the Music Industry there were no format rules for that and you can have 10 downloads of the same track. The Record Industry controlled the sales of downloads that much by giving iTunes a massive amount of the market, that the top 40 on a Sunday turned into the top 40 of iTunes. Something the BBC didn't like, so pressure was placed on the OCC to bring in streaming to make certain the top 40 doesn't look like the iTunes chart. I think to some extent they have done that! Streaming was introduced from services where customers don't actually pay for the service. A complex formula devised to limit the streams so as not to alienate iTunes too much. The recent introduction to the album chart has an even more complicated rules to allow some people to listen to four tracks on an album as a part chart share! The Friday release date has got the Music Industry in a panic as it wants singles - such as this week's Number One - to go in at number one. It would not have if it had been released the Friday before and probably wouldn't have made the top on it's second week. So the Music Industry is pressuring the industry to shift the chart dates. The OCC simply sucks up to the Music Industry every time, because it's not an independent body. It's a bit like putting the police in charge of crime figures and link them to the police's funding. With crime figures down - money lost from the budget! So the crime figures would go up most of the time. Making the charts is an expensive business and if the Music Industry funds the body that compiles them then they will never reflect what the public buy or stream, because if the OCC want to make them fair they will do things such as keeping the chart date as they are now. With records entering low and shooting up the charts, but possibly not going to the top the second week. As for the Independent Radio chart. It was them that created the Sunday chart shows and the fact that Radio One broadcast a top 40 now. Otherwise Radio One would still be doing the top ten, with a presenter doing it like a news reader. If they keep the "fake" chart to the same timetable and Radio One switches, even if the Radio One charts stays on Sunday, it will be two weeks behind and it will seem very dated alongside the Hit 40. I don't think the BBC will like that at all - Official or not chart!

MFSB That stands for "Mother Father Sister Brother". Great Job as always! The first part of M is dominated by Scottish or ex Scots. Did you know that "Scot" is Old English for Irishman. But the word was also used as in England for a tax, hence getting away with it Scot free! You can almost hear the bagpipes and smell the heather!

It's still in use, it's just that they take the drugs in private :heehee:

Actually the reason for the chart being issued a Tuesday is because they used an old system which including posting diary's to the chart compiler. Record shops would post the sales information to the chart compiler and it wasn't sorted out and checked till Tuesday. But it was for the whole week Sunday to Saturday as it is now. These days it is ready for use sometime before 4pm Sunday. I doubt that it could be issued at lunchtime Friday for an afternoon chart, as it would need checking and the returns would not start coming in till midnight Thursday to Millward Brown. Without checking errors would be common. Apparently they once had packets of KP Salted Peanuts top of the chart! Before somebody noticed it!! Moving the chart issue date will not bring back Top of The Pops. With the scandal around it still coming up the BBC management will not want it every week at least until the scandals has died down. I can't see Radio One moving the chart show to Friday. It's a big club day that, why mess with it? They could move it to Saturday after 9pm, by lunch the number one would be announced, many of the MTV stations broadcast the top 40 Saturday. Lots of ILR stations used to broadcast their top 40's at that time, so it's tried and tested. It would give the opportunity for the BBC TV to do some kind of Saturday chart show too, perhaps a live link up with Radio One? All this fuss though. All because the OCC sucks up to the record industry! And the argument about stopping illegal downloading is just bullshit....

The reason many records have passed over the million mark since they were first released is that they were made available to purchase by the introduction of the download. Prior to that the record company had deleted the track as it was too expensive to keep it in circulation. The problem with streaming is that some of the streaming costs are paid for by advertisements. People have to buy a download or a CD etc. They don't have to pay for a streamed record. Since some users of streaming sites don't pay a fee to the site to use it. Instead they have to listen to adverts. This means that a site might cater for advertisers over the artists they pay money too. It follows too that a link could develop between artists who makes records that suit certain large funders of advertisers on streaming sites. Many acts themselves have links with commercial companies. It wouldn't take much for a very commercial track, linked with a particular product, to soon became a big seller or should I say most listened to record. Though I don't like streaming being included in charts at all. If it has to be done, plus while people still purchase records, then it should be done on the basis that a person pays for the streaming service and not by proxy through adverts. This should certainly apply to the million seller, plus a unit added should be at the cost of the average price of a download. Not on the royalty figure!

I'm not predicting anything for the future. It's you that's doing that. Even in that you say "there is no need to carry hard drives around with you and pay £1 for each song when you can get it easier and cheaper via streaming" but as I said this MIGHT not follow on. A new technology could interfere with the process or there could be a sociological change which has nothing to do with the music industry that changes how music is listened to or performed. As an historian I can show you how the development of education for all as affected the world since many countries increased the school leaving age past 12. Indeed this process created the teenager who listens to popular music. However like many things the education of people aged between 12 and 16 and beyond has also increased some nasty side effects on the population. Most of these were present in the past, but never in large numbers and the process is still continuing. The recent increase of the school leaving age to 18 in the UK will play out in the years to come having more nasty side effects and a just few positive ones. Unfortunately at the moment few people believe that education for people aged 12 to 18 is actually attacking the societies we live in. Quite the reverse actually with huge amounts of cash being thrown at the problem to make education solve the problems that it is actually creating. One of these side-effects might be to make certain young people believe that the music they like is being damaged by the companies that offer streaming. This view can be right or wrong, as it simply doesn't matter if those that believe it to be true think that way. Streaming would then go out of the window like the 78 record. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will happen as you can't tell what movements education will create. But it has done in the past, from punk to mod to dance. It created the gay scene too and loads of other movements too. But makes no bones about it sending kids to school past the age of 12 is what started them all. If you want to know more about the both positive and negative effects of the Education Culture just search Google for Reflected People by Graham Appleyard and you will find my blog. As for you first question a sale is a sale - streaming is simply Radio airplay without the radio and presenter to choose the records. Radio Airplay is not allowed in the UK chart even though many millions are listening to the record. Of course they might not like the record they are listening to, but since a 30 seconds of play on streaming site counts to the chart then it's possible that someone listens to a record for even longer than that and still doesn't like the record. So it cancels it out any argument not to exclude Airplay. Not that I would want that in the chart either! In any case the sales chart was never about what was popular it just had that effect. Small fan bases could push a record into the chart on sales of the record that wasn't seen as cool or popular. The streaming chart doesn't actually do this. It could if it wasn't restrained from doing so by the rules imposed by the OCC. In fact the rules themselves actually stop it from being popular. Streaming has also slowed down the records entering the charts. Though new ones that are being streamed only is simply down to the record companies in the UK not releasing the said records. Though downloads did slow down the charts too. That was largely down to the restrictive practices of the record companies and the monopoly of Apple that prevented lots of download sites appearing. For example it took ages to get shut of DRM management and the transition to MP3 by download sites. Yet even now the number of download sites is small and the pricing thus fixed at a price way above what it costs to pay for an album. If you download ten tracks individually for example, it costs a lot more to do so then if those tracks were on an album.

I don't think I made my point clear enough. If the streaming is the future you make the main chart the - entire chart - streaming. You leave the sales chart as a sales chart. People once said the vinyl record sales were dead, but we know they are now picking up sales. So don't fall for the hype that sales charts are dying. They might be being murdered, but they are not dead yet. There are lots of things that could affect the future of streaming. You saying it is the future is not a given thing. All it shows that you along with lots of other people have a bad view of history and therefore the future. You only have to look at movie predictions of the future to see how wrong things can get if you follow your line of thinking. For example the airwaves should be full of private aircraft, or cars powered by fusion flying around the sky. Oh and in 2005 if you said that the download will be the future and it's how people will consume music for years to come. You can see your argument about streaming being the future as insane too. More young people watch YouTube than stream records. That's not included in the UK chart, because YouTube is competition to the BBC services and the BBC (who fund the chart) won't allow it. It's another example how something can be stopped by something completely alien to it.

Streaming should not have been introduced to the sales chart. It's a sales chart not what people listen to. If the sales chart doesn't reflect what music people are enjoying then you simply switch to streaming totally. Then leave the sales chart to die a slow death, even to those with a small fanbase. Predictions based on figures from the present however don't have much bases in fact. The future is very difficult to predict. Many people have been caught out in the past on all sorts of issues, because they base future predictions on current knowledge. To give some examples. You might recall a prediction about 1999. Back in the early 1980's a TV presenter tried to work out what the world would be like in 1999. He used an astrological computer to get information, as the original prediction about 1999 was based on Astrology. It came up with a bad disease spreading around the world centred on Africa. The conclusion at the time was due to the cold war and germ warfare. That is the kind of thing you get working with statistics and the straight line approach that many people have from modern education about future events. In reality the computer simply predicted AIDS as nobody ever thought that the cold war could end like it did. This is not an isolated thing; back in the 1st Century an astrological event was predicted as a birth of a King. Because that's what they thought at that time. Instead it was the birth of the Christen religion. Alternatives to your view that streaming will continue to grow could depend on technological changes, musicians attitudes to how they get paid and loads of other factors. The main reason that streaming was introduced to the chart was to stop the BBC Radio One top 40 looking like the iTunes chart for the week. The BBC not liking a chart that looked like a commercial company and being one of the main funders of the said chart. Popularity had little to do with such actions. A more popular chart would have included the views from the video sites such as YouTube, but the BBC would have objected to them being included. If a song is only bought by a 10,000 strong fanbase then it would not join the million seller lists for the most popular records in the UK. And the million seller list would remain static. But there is nothing wrong with the list remaining static. However there is something wrong with adding a record that has been listened to a million times. For as I say the people only have to listen for a short period of time and you can do that if some site offers a preview of the top 40 records each week. With loads of people going down the top records, play 30 seconds of each record and occasionally playing in full the ones they like. If 10,000 people do that, you will have million sellers in a few weeks especially if the records hang around the top 40 like they do now. Because every top 40 record counted not the ones that people just played in full. You only have to look at the ridicules figures for streams of records that show in the current charts to see that counting them towards the million sellers list is stupid. Then you have to take into account that people listening to these records in some case have not even forked out any cash at all to do so. In which case the record's revenue (taken into account to qualify for the chart) has come from adverts from the likes of Cola companies. None of the previous records that have made the million sellers got there from commercial firms adverts, at least not directly. The whole idea of popular music is to listen to it. That's why people make it. They don't want it to be forgot about next day. Just because for the first time in history we can actually count the people listening to the music doesn't mean they should add that to those where the public of the past spent a great deal of money buying the records that they wanted to listen to.

It's stupid to count them for weekly sales too! Streaming is a listen to track which nobody owns. People listen to the million sellers all the time from the past. But those listened to where not recorded. What makes it worse for streaming is that you don't even have to listen to all the track, so the contribution could be to sales could be just a casual person listening to the song because it's popular, then finding out they don't like it! However if you fork out money for a record you probably do like it, hence why in the past people bought records in huge numbers and the term "a million seller" was born. It stood out from the rest of the records that were on sale and was a special achievement. However does this still apply to a million seller? The status of the million seller has been somewhat downgraded in the past few years since downloads came along. Since downloads are cheaper than the records prior to the introduction of the format. So a record that sold 1 million copies precisely. In the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's made more money than a download record selling the same. Also before downloads, records were deleted so a record selling a huge amount couldn't stay in the shops long and often the record company restricted sending copies out of the big sellers to open up the market for new tracks. This changed with the download market and records now continue to sell. This means that over a long time even a modest selling record in the day can still have the tag "million seller" applied to it. However streaming is even worse for paying out and so a 1 million stream of even allowed streams is as low or lower than the download, so the status of the term "million seller" become pointless.

It would be easy for a new record to get the top spot over X-Factor, it would just need a slot on a TV show that would have as big ratings as that show. If it wasn't for Simon Cowell using the Mark Ronson track that wouldn't have been out at all. So there's the other problem. If nobody with a decent single even wants to release it Christmas week then how can a decent record make it. I thought the Rage campaign would have least convinced some of the artists that the public want to see a record at the top that isn't X-Factor. But it seems they are spineless on this. Perhaps because Simon's connection with Sony blocks them doing anything. Now if Adele had released a new record that week, Ben would have had no chance! Simon was very clever this year. He picked a track that hadn't been near the chart, so it was nearly to most people a new record. I think that's the shows problem it should have a new record written for the winning act, instead of the cover versions of sugar tripe that most of them sing. It would get less people saying not another year spoiled by X-Factor!

It's been aired on all the major forums about Dave's departure from this world, so if he has gone to Australia that news to me! You would have thought that he would have been contacted by now to say that people are saying you have died. I do live in hope that he will surface on one forum and say "the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

I have some of the charts taken from the Superpop and Number One magazine on my blog site: MRIB Charts Dave Taylor is believed to have died in April of this year.

Spotted a spelling mistake on the 94 hit of Grace Jones - Slave not Slade. Query on two possible missing acts? 1: JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU 2 Catherine Zeta JONES. Of course "Zeta" might be part of her surname, but I think it sounds more like a Christian name than Surname, though I could be wrong.

Great work. Some extra information for the JALN Band. JALN stands for Just Another Lonely Night. They were the brain child of Pete Waterman.

Since the original version was released on a format that everyone could buy and then buy again and again, whereas now you can't really do that - then no a new version won't outsell the old. A fact that Mr Geldof seems to be unaware of by going on X-Factor last night and appealing for people (who have download it) to rebuy it and buy one for your friends etc. In the digital age the Main sites operate a cloud system and lock you out from buying the track again. Deleting the track doesn't make any difference. You can download the track from the cloud and you don't pay for it again after the first 99p. I would be surprised if the system was changed just for the sake of allowing people to buy another track of Band Aid 30. You could imagine lots of artists asking for that to happen so they could make more money! The Supermarkets might help add to the total sales, but only when the CD is out. How many people are going to buy the CD? When Geldof dies people will buy the Boomtown Rats tracks. If he dies near Christmas then some facebook people will campaign for the Original song to be top that year. If it makes it to the top depends on how the public will react to his death.

Frank Ifield was born in Coventry. In 1965 he made a film called Up Jumped A Swagman. He plays an Australian singer who moves to London to get his big break. This might be why he is seen as being from down under. He sang I Remember You in the movie too. It was his only film. It is on DVD.

A comment from a customer of Amazon... "From what we've seen from iTunes it's gone bonkers," Bob Geldorf told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday. "Within four or five minutes we had a million quid." Yet on Amazon Music at 9:30am - an hour and a half after the release - a search for "Band Aid" showed nothing. I At 2 pm It was nowhere in the top 100 songs or albums (updated hourly) nor did it appear on the New & Future Releases. About 2:30 pm if you search for "BandAid30" you can pre-order the CD. And if you search for "do they know its christmas" it will finally suggest an alternative search for do they know its christmas 2014". Why are you hiding it? Why don't you give ALL the revenue from sales of the song to the charity? Is it because you don't like the trite lyrics or some fit of pique that iTunes are getting this free publicity? Come on there are thousands of people dying out in West Africa and they need every bit of help. However Amazon must have taken notice and corrected the error and so the record now sits on top of the Amazon chart!

Amazon are NOT displaying the Band Aid 30 track in the top 100 bestsellers nor the new release section of the site. It is present but only if you search for Band Aid 30. A customer has already asked why the record is not on display. I suspect that Bob mouthing off about iTunes and giving them all the 99p has upset the boss of Amazon.

I can't see it making the Christmas Number one now. Apart from the fact it's crap they have released it far too early. There's stacks of records that will come out in the 3 weeks before Christmas, that could easily shift more copies than this. It's alright Geldof saying buy several copies, but if you want to do that you will have to buy the CD's. As once you have purchased a download from the same store you can't buy it again.