AcerBen

If they suddenly made everything eligible after the show, they'd run the risk of having very minor hits making them look bad. Though they ought to at least make the original Dimelo eligible so they can combine the sales.

It's not random. She performed it at the Grammys, recorded a studio version for George's film, and George died at Christmas. It makes perfect sense to release it as a single at Christmas. Wouldn't be surprised if it was just a free download on her website or something though rather than a full single.

I reckon when Grace comes 2nd tomorrow night, Syco will put Roots out pretty quickly, maybe in January.

I reckon Perfect will burn out relatively quickly because it's already been out for almost a year

Overnight ratings for the Christmas Day edition: 2009 - 3.40m (27.6%) - 14:00 2010 - 4.00m (27.8%) - 14:00 2011 - 3.90m (28.1%) - 14:00 2012 - 3.88m (26.6%) - 14:00 2013 - 3.10m (24.2%) - 14:00 2014 - 3.01m (24.0%) - 14:00 2015 - 2.83m (23.1%) - 14:00 2016 - 1.92m (14.3%) - 13:50 (news at 14:50 before The Queen) Big drop last year - it faced stronger competition last year than usual though - Harry Potter

Yeah I reckon OCC by default will combine them, but if the label request it to be separate they will separate it. I wonder how this will all affect the Christmas Number 1 bets if it ends up making it.

Dolly Parton - 9 To 5 - #47 Air Supply - Making Love Out Of Nothing At All - #80 The Jeff Healey Band - Angel Eyes - #86 Tom Petty - Free Fallin' - #59

Mmm. I think the only way Grace can win this now if she pulls out "Roots" again for the final.

As a TOTP fanatic, it's always a real treat to see the show back on Christmas Day as if we're visiting an alternate reality where the show was never cancelled. Long may the specials continue, even if the chances of it ever coming back full time seems to drift further away.

Yes but they had to licence it from them

Also have to remember that it's not just about making money out of the downloads themselves, but if it motivates a certain percentage of customers to stick with iPhones..

I think they will merge it too, but I don't think download sales will fall to nothing, and if the music industry has any sense it will not allow it to happen. There are plenty of people who will never pay £10 a month because they don't need or want to. There's research that backs this up. If you've already got a library of MP3s and you only really want the odd Adele album, Now compilation or the #1 summer hit, you don't need a subscription.

Only You is such a masterpiece.

Well I think they responded by shortening the chats to fit in one extra performer, but the sketches are still there and still bad. However, the ratings recovered well this week. Up from 1.6m to 2.32m. If it can keep that up it might just get another chance. Though it wasn't up against Corrie last night.

I hope they're holding off on Adele for Christmas week. Would love Fastlove to be #1, more so than bloody Last Christmas. But it'd be good way of honoring George having them as the top 2.

Miracle was released on a different label Incentive. AATW were furious because they wanted to get their second single out but because Incentive already had the rights to Miracle, they put that out to capitalise on the success of Everytime, so AATW had to wait for that to come and go!

Overnight ratings are still important though, and I can guarantee you it won't be back on BBC One if it continues to hit below 2 million for the rest of the series. It's not doing very well on iPlayer either.

Yes it was definitely a better show - at least the first half was, until they went back to the sketches. At least it's one more song but it needs another one or two. And a chart rundown. Oh just bring back TOTP. 1.61m this week - it's not going to get recommissioned at this rate.

Disaster

WHOOSH

Mainly because it's #2 on Hot Hits. What a farce our chart is becoming.

I bet those figures would be pretty much the same if they played something other than a chart show in the timeslot. I expect most people who are listening in spite of it being a chart show not because of it.

Don't know how recent these figures are, but someone posted on Digital Spy that R1's Chart Show gets 1.7m (which is up on the around 1m it used to get on Sunday) and Big Top 40 gets 2.4m

Understandable that they changed that - it used to be all about "you can change the chart by downloading these songs now" but of course so few people are downloading now. But the chart looks very odd now. It still looks to be more based on sales than streams - but the success of some records cannot be explained. How is Matt Terry at #14 this week?

They're not studio recordings. They're live recordings from the rehearsals, straight off the deck.