The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[MrTibbs]

BTW, on the 20th June, the last weeks positions for the two versions of Personality are switched. On the 13th June Chart, Lloyd Price was at 22 and Anthony Newley at 23.

I have corrected that thanks David.

[braindeadpj]

BTW, on the 20th June, the last weeks positions for the two versions of Personality are switched. On the 13th June Chart, Lloyd Price was at 22 and Anthony Newley at 23.

[braindeadpj]

Interestingly, most of the chart combos I pointed out for the June 13th chart are repeated in the June 20th chart. Side Saddle's positions are tied for NME and Disc (8) and MM and RM (12), Marty Wilde (Teenager in Love) tie for NME and RM (4) and are similar for MM and Disc (6 and 7) and the Everly Brothers are again similar for NME/MM (20/19) and Disc/RM (11/13).

[kingofskiffle]

Yeah that fact on the three way number one initiating the BMRB chart is a commonly held misconception. It was not the case. Discussions were well underway before that, as Robbie also pointed out, to have an official national chart. Certainly the three way number one would have added further evidence that a national chart was indeed needed.

Yes, the article was printed about a month before the triple chart entry. It's a fun read and I mention it within the 1968 volume of the 70 years series.

[MrTibbs]

Robbie posted here an article from Billboard about discussions with the BBC and BMRB planning a sales chart which preceded the infamous 3-way tie, so it was not the original cause - although could well have been a catalyst.

Yeah that fact on the three way number one initiating the BMRB chart is a commonly held misconception. It was not the case. Discussions were well underway before that, as Robbie also pointed out, to have an official national chart. Certainly the three way number one would have added further evidence that a national chart was indeed needed.

[Splodj]

The screengrab of the fake board on that Des and Mick website is from the Chart Brittania show, in turn copied from the anniversary show. I can't remember whether they cut Saville out of the CB clip, but there are several photos of the real board they could have used cutting him out. The board with Sandie Shaw at number one, in the other screengrab, is genuine.

Robbie posted here an article from Billboard about discussions with the BBC and BMRB planning a sales chart which preceded the infamous 3-way tie, so it was not the original cause - although could well have been a catalyst.

[MrTibbs]

Wow, okay. I don't recall seeing the show TBH.... In that case absolutely agree!

I must try and find that clip although it might be deleted given that JS was present.

[kingofskiffle]

It was him JS who opened the anniversary show though Lonnie standing in front of the board with the RR chart replacing the original and saying something like , welcome to TOTP and this is the chart. What a travesty .

Wow, okay. I don't recall seeing the show TBH.... In that case absolutely agree!

[MrTibbs]

They probably did it to avoid using the image above with him in it…

It was him JS who opened the anniversary show though Lonnie standing in front of the board with the RR chart replacing the original and saying something like , welcome to TOTP and this is the chart. What a travesty .

[kingofskiffle]

They probably did it to avoid using the image above with him in it…

[MrTibbs]

Yes Brian that is the correct BBC chart used for the first TOTP and not the RR one that was used for the anniversary show. I was appalled when the BBC pulled that stunt hoping no one would notice. But I did.

[brian05]

More photos and some interesting text can be found here.

Des and Mick Online - TV & Radio - Top of the Pops


The BBC's method of producing an 'average' chart was not without its problems, not least its tendency to produce joint chart positions. This issue came to a head in August 1968, when three songs all shared number one position on the BBC chart, and thus TOTP had to feature all three. And so in February 1969, the BBC, in collaboration with the Record Retailer paper, commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to produce a weekly 'official' chart. This would now feature on both Pick and Top of the Pops. By now, the latter had switched to revealing the Top 20 records in the more familiar reverse order.

[brian05]

The first ever BBC Top of the Pops chart from January 1964.

[MrTibbs]

Hmmm, crazy as it may seem it is the paper with the least store returns that has the best balanced chart this week, Melody Maker.

All other three charts have outliers which are so far they are actually outside the ball park and across the street.
NME with Joan Regan, Disc with Bobby Darin (again) Duane Eddy and RM with Neil Sedaka, all out of sync with the others.

It must surely come down to which shops and which type of shops each sampled to get such wayward differing results to these extremes.

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 20th 1959

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 20th 1959								NME	MM	DISC	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey					75	25	40	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC			TOP	30	Scored
2	1	Roulette - Russ Conway					1	1	1	1	1	6000
1	2	A Fool Such As I / I Need Your Love Tonight - Elvis Presley					2	2	2	2	2	5800
5	3	Dream Lover - Bobby Darin					3	3	3	5	3	5520
3	4	It's Late / Never Be Anyone Else But You - Ricky Nelson *					4	7	4	3	6	5298
10	5	A Teenager In Love - Marty Wilde					5	4	6	7	4	5230
6	6	I've Waited So Long - Anthony Newley					7	5	7	6	5	5110
4	7	It Doesn't Matter Anymore - Buddy Holly					6	6	5	4	7	5045
8	8	Side Saddle - Russ Conway					8	8	12	8	12	4260
11	9	Guitar Boogie Shuffle - Bert Weedon					9	10	14	14	8	4060
9	10	Mean Streak / Never Mind - Cliff Richard					10	13	10	10	15	3675
7	11	I Go Ape - Neil Sedaka					11	12	11	9	17	3645
18	12	May You Always - Joan Regan					14	9	18	18	16	3395
NEW	13	Peter Gunn / Yep - Duane Eddy					12	11	8		10	3335
14	14	Three Stars - Ruby Wright					13	22	9	12	9	3305
15	15	Poor Jenny / Take A Message To Mary - The Everly Brothers					15	20	19	11	13	3005
24	16	Goodbye Jimmy Goodbye - Ruby Murray					17	16	17	15	19	2835
22	17	Personality - Lloyd Price					16	18	15		11	2575
13	18	Donna - Marty Wilde					18=	23	16	13	20	2355
21	19	A Teenager In Love - Craig Douglas					18=	14			14	2295
23	20	Personality - Anthony Newley						21		16	18	2130
12	21	Come Softly To Me - Frankie Vaughan and The Kaye Sisters					20	19	13	19		1830
16	22	Petite Fleur - Chris Barber						17		17		1610
19	23	Where Were You On Our Wedding Day - Lloyd Price						24		20		965
NEW	24	Please Don't Touch - Johnny Kidd and The Pirates						26	20			650
20	25	May You Always - The McGuire Sisters						24				525
RE	26	Venus - Dickie Valentine						28				225
29	27	Kansas City - Little Richard						29				150
29	28	Margie - Fats Domino						30				75
		Never Be Anyone Else But You - Ricky Nelson (B)						14
		Take A Message To Mary - The Everly Brothers (A)						27
17		Come Softly To Me - The Fleetwoods
25		Idle On Parade (EP) - Anthony Newley
26		Wait For Me / Willingly - Malcolm Vaughan
27		Charlie Brown - The Coasters
28		For A Penny - Pat Boone
		* This week the split side disadvantaged the averaged chart position so an average was taken from the other 3 charts and awarded to NME to give a more representative chart position.

[Splodj]

Wikipedia says: "Despite reaching a respectable 10 position on the singles chart 'Mean Streak' would have fared better were it not having to compete in the charts with its flip side 'Never Mind' which peaked at number 21."

Actually the peaks did not coincide, but I wonder if it would have made a difference anyway. Although 'Mean Streak' did hold up better when buyers coalesced around it.

NME positions for the last 5 weeks:
Mean Streak 12/10/12/11/11
Never Mind 21/26/ - / - / -

[Splodj]

By now Disc were featuring Bubbling Unders. This week's 'Ones To Watch' were the records by Ruby Murray, Billy Fury and Lloyd Price.

Similarly, Record Mirror had a Top 10 by 'British Artistes' where the bottom few were outside their general Top 20.

[MrTibbs]

Its definitely an interesting chart this week with certain tracks being comparable on two charts each time (but not the same two for each). For instance Side Saddle is at 7 on both NME and Disc while at 12 on both MM and RM. On the other hand Marty Wilde (A Teenager In Love) is at 8 and 9 on NME and RM, while 14 and 15 on MM and Disc. Then we have Frankie Vaughan at 10 on both NME and MM and 13 on both Disc and RM - The Everly Brothers follow a similar pattern (but the other way round being much higher on the Disc/RM pairiing (11 vs 20). The smoothing out of these complex 'interactions' by the UAC again emphasizes its value..

I too believe the 'averaging' and smoothing out process produces a far more balanced and relevant chart for the years prior to BMRB.

In effect the UAC at this time is using a sample of around 200 stores. Not bad for 1959.

[braindeadpj]

Its definitely an interesting chart this week with certain tracks being comparable on two charts each time (but not the same two for each). For instance Side Saddle is at 7 on both NME and Disc while at 12 on both MM and RM. On the other hand Marty Wilde (A Teenager In Love) is at 8 and 9 on NME and RM, while 14 and 15 on MM and Disc. Then we have Frankie Vaughan at 10 on both NME and MM and 13 on both Disc and RM - The Everly Brothers follow a similar pattern (but the other way round being much higher on the Disc/RM pairiing (11 vs 20). The smoothing out of these complex 'interactions' by the UAC again emphasizes its value..

[Splodj]

As NME sometimes specify both sides of a double-A (eg Elvis) does this mean they are separating them when they don't?

[MrTibbs]

What Disc did put at number 5 - Cliff Richard - also looks bizarre. Although MM have it at 8, this may also be giving it a false boost due to low sampling.

Yeah totally agree. DISC are also out of sync with Marty Wilde's Donna and Bert Weedon.

[Splodj]

What Disc did put at number 5 - Cliff Richard - also looks bizarre. Although MM have it at 8, this may also be giving it a false boost due to low sampling.

[MrTibbs]

DISC is way out of touch with Bobby Darin's Dream Lover at 10 while the other three charts place it at 5.
This is a perfect example of the averaging out process working well as the average chart position on the UAC still places it it at 5 because the weighting of the other three charts pulls it to the centre ground despite the outlier in this case DISC.

[MrTibbs]

Greetings Pop Pickers

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending June 13th 1959

Here are all '' the uppers, the downers, the just hanging 'arounders '

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending June 13th 1959								NME	MM	DISC	RM	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey					75	25	40	60	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC			TOP	30	Scored
1	1	A Fool Such As I / I Need Your Love Tonight - Elvis Presley					1	1	1	1	1	6000
4	2	Roulette - Russ Conway					2	2	4	3	2	5710
3	3	It's Late / Never Be Anyone Else Like You - Ricky Nelson					3	4	3	2	3	5565
2	4	It Doesn't Matter Anymore - Buddy Holly					4	3	2	4	4	5525
16	5	Dream Lover - Bobby Darin					6	5	5	10	5	5000
5	6	I've Waited So Long - Anthony Newley					5	6	6	6	6	5000
10	7	I Go Ape - Neil Sedaka					7	9	7	8	10	4430
6	8	Side Saddle - Russ Conway					8=	7	12	7	12	4375
8	9	Mean Streak / Never Mind - Cliff Richard					8=	11	8	5	14	4135
22	10	A Teenager In Love - Marty Wilde					10=	8	14	15	9	4110
9	11	Guitar Boogie Shuffle - Bert Weedon					10=	12	9	18	7	3935
13	12	Come Softly To Me - Frankie Vaughan and The Kaye Sisters					10=	10	10	13	13	3900
7	13	Donna - Marty Wilde					13	12	13	9	15	3715
21	14	Three Stars - Ruby Wright					14	19	11	14	8	3460
14	15	Poor Jenny / Take A Message To Mary - The Everly Brothers					15	20	20	11	11	3100
12	16	Petite Fleur - Chris Barber					16	14		12	19	2755
11	17	Come Softly To Me - The Fleetwoods					17	18	16	16	18	2730
18	18	May You Always - Joan Regan					19=	17	18	20	20	2475
15	19	Where Were You On Our Wedding Day - Lloyd Price					19=	16		17		1685
19	20	May You Always - The McGuire Sisters					18	15	15			1600
NEW	21	A Teenager In Love - Craig Douglas						24			16	1425
NEW	22	Personality - Lloyd Price						26			17	1215
NEW	23	Personality - Anthony Newley						22	17			1025
29	24	Goodbye Jimmy Goodbye - Ruby Murray						23				600
24	25	Idle On Parade (EP) - Anthony Newley								19		480
26	26	Wait For Me / Willingly - Malcolm Vaughan						25				450
17	27	Charlie Brown - The Coasters						27				300
30	28	For A Penny - Pat Boone							19			300
20	29	Margie - Fats Domino						28				225
28	29	Kansas City - Little Richard						28				225
25		You Made Me Love You - Nat King Cole						30				75
		Please Don't Touch - Johnny Kidd and The Pirates						30				75
		Never Be Anyone Else But You - Ricky Nelson (B)						21
23		Fort Worth Jail - Lonnie Donegan
27		C'mon Everybody - Eddie Cochran

[MrTibbs]

One of the quirks of doing these calculations by hand is the significance of the order in which you write out the records on your scoresheet. An error is more difficult to spot if the 'base' chart used places a record near where your total places it.

For example, in that recent case of a 10 point error they must have used one of two charts as their base. If they had used either of the other two the error would have been obvious.

Not in any way a reasonable excuse, but perhaps an explanation.

Yes the BBC could have been doing with excel back then. Obviously the compiler performed poorly at school in mental arithmetic and adding up