The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[braindeadpj]

From the OCC today.

1963 was the year The Beatles truly hit their stride, landing their first three of their overall 17 Number 1s. Advance orders of I Want To Hold Your Hand reportedly exceeded 1 million and would have debuted at the top on the day of its release, had it not been blocked by their first million-seller She Loves You. No matter, though, as it soared to Number 1 the following week.

Are they suggesting She Loves You sold a million copies to block I Want To Hold Your Hand entering at number one? As MrTibbs has shown it was RR that had SLY at no. 1 and IWTHYH at no. 10, while NME, MM and DISC all had IWTHYH a new entry at no. 1.
The so-called "official chart" got it wrong.

This is what the OCC should've said if they wanted to be accurate:
1963 was the year The Beatles truly hit their stride, landing their first four of their overall 18 Number 1s. Advance orders of I Want To Hold Your Hand reportedly exceeded 1 million and it did debut at the top on the day of its release, in every chart but our 'official' one where it was blocked by their first million-seller She Loves You and 8 other songs..... No matter, though, as it soared to Number 1 the following week.

Interesting that they say "would have debuted at the top on the day of its release" - does this mean RR was only including Friday's sales? Or is this just further example of their bull**** (or hyperbole) as the points system ranking only showed for the week and not daily sales (or did it give daily updates?)

[Graham76man]

Sorry I wasn't singling out the RR chart, saying it was crap. All the 60's charts were crap, simply because they didn't add up the records. It's not too difficult thing to have 50 or 60 shops to tell you what they had sold. It's common sense that no two shops were alike in what they sold and to treat any sample, especially a large sample as though the shops were all equal is plain stupid.

Much of how the charts were compiled is either based on speculation or from people doing general research on the charts. Giving overall results. Yet most of the speculation on here is down at the weekly level or at least on the year in question. In a field that I'm interested in - history. Their are lots of academic historians and they would dismiss much of the so called facts on here straight away. They would point out that a great deal of research would need to be done. It's not that hard, though limited in the current situation, to track the research down. Much of it would come from people still alive that worked on the publications. When Alan Smith did his research he wasn't interested too much in the day to day running of producing a chart, I don't think he asked about the problems that cropped up from time to time. Plus there should be lots of evidence of what shops took part. Though Alan Smith said that the different papers didn't use the same shops, I think that would be highly unlikely. It might have been true at certain times, but were the 300 shops of the BMRB also not doing returns on the others?
Due to the similarity presented on here of the charts when Mr Tibbs was doing the 70's charts, some of the stores must have been supplying the BMRB as well as the papers. Otherwise the tyin's would not be the same.
Much of the information will not have vanished as many believe it has. It might not be accessible, due to it containing personal information. But it will be out there. It's just a question of knowing where to look and who to ask.

[Splodj]

On the specific issue of 'I want to hold your hand' though, I would say that it sold more in 2 days than any other record that week. After 'She loves you' there was a massive demand for the follow up and EMI had plenty of time since it had been recorded to build up supplies. So I think it is accurate to say that the non-RR charts were right. It is a pity that we still have not ascertained if RRs survey week end was Friday which, if it was, would explain the discrepancy (since probably more bought it on the Saturday) and not make RR 'wrong' in itself.

[Graham76man]

Well of course they are right, since the Beatles single went in at number one the December 1 Real Chart. Which did add all the records up from ALL shops!
Here's the top ten for that week:
1 new The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy
2 (2) The Beatles - She Loves You
3 Freddie and The Dreamers - You Were Made For Me
4 (1) Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - I'll Keep You Satisfied
5 The Beatles - The Beatles No 1 EP
6 Kathy Kirby - Secret Love
7 Cliff Richard and the Shadows - Don't Talk To Him
8 The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man
9 Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over
10 Dusty Springfield - I Only Want To Be With You

Record Retailer must have cut of it's sales period at Friday, since it had a publication date of Thursday. Getting all the returns back by post would have put a tight deadline on the paper if including Saturday sales. Whereas the other papers were using the phone method and didn't have to wait to get the results back.
It's clearly another case of misleading information telling people that Record Retailer final day of calculation was Saturday. It might have been at some point, but the low new Friday releases shows that it can't have been. It's a bit like saying the same when BMRB took over saying that Saturday was always the last day. Since for a while in 1976 they couldn't get the returns in due to the post office cancelling Sunday deliveries.

[Graham76man]

And I have just got the figures from the compilers for the two Beatles tracks that week.
651,000
220,000
So that solves that!

[Splodj]

MM used primarily postal returns. See post #1968 for Daily Mirror report of when 'I feel fine' went straight in at number one on two days sales.

[Robbie]

Well of course they are right, since the Beatles single went in at number one the December 1 Real Chart. Which did add all the records up from ALL shops!
Here's the top ten for that week:
1 new The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy
2 (2) The Beatles - She Loves You
3 Freddie and The Dreamers - You Were Made For Me
4 (1) Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas - I'll Keep You Satisfied
5 The Beatles - The Beatles No 1 EP
6 Kathy Kirby - Secret Love
7 Cliff Richard and the Shadows - Don't Talk To Him
8 The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man
9 Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over
10 Dusty Springfield - I Only Want To Be With You

Record Retailer must have cut of it's sales period at Friday, since it had a publication date of Thursday. Getting all the returns back by post would have put a tight deadline on the paper if including Saturday sales. Whereas the other papers were using the phone method and didn't have to wait to get the results back.
It's clearly another case of misleading information telling people that Record Retailer final day of calculation was Saturday. It might have been at some point, but the low new Friday releases shows that it can't have been. It's a bit like saying the same when BMRB took over saying that Saturday was always the last day. Since for a while in 1976 they couldn't get the returns in due to the post office cancelling Sunday deliveries.

For a point in 1976 it looks like the chart week ran from a Friday to a Thursday. I had forgotten that the chart sales week for 1974 to September 1978 was a Saturday to Friday and from May to September 1976 (and February 1977) it moved by a day which means Friday to Thursday.

Dave Taylor once posted that even when the chart week moved back to Monday to Saturday many chart return shops sent their diaries back Saturday midday to ensure that the diaries were received by BMRB first post on a Monday morning. That means even Saturday afternoon sales would therefore be missing from many returns. I don't know whether the shops affected where the ones that didn't have a courier collect them or whether they were the shops where a courier called to get them. Given that by 1982 there were 800 or so shops on the chart panel it seems likely that a courier would just call at some random point on a Saturday, probably starting from noon. I wonder if the affected shops would then start filling in the new diary straight away or whether they would wait until the Monday, potentially meaning a number of sales were not recorded.

[Robbie]

MM used primarily postal returns. See post #1968 for Daily Mirror report of when 'I feel fine' went straight in at number one on two days sales.

We did have a much better postal system back then of course with Sunday collections so I imagine everything would be received back at MM HQ on a Monday morning.

What day did all the music papers go to press / be on sale back then? I know Music Week went to press on a Tuesday afternoon in the 70s with the BMRB charts being the final part of the magazine to be prepared for printing. I think most of the magazine was ready to print the previous Friday unless there was a massive breaking story. Elvis Presley did on a Tuesdsay evening UK time and it didn't make that week's Music Week. Record Mirror did carry the news in the 20/08/77 issue but that is because Record Mirror went to press overnight on a Tuesday evening / Wednesday morning. I think the news of his death was reported in the UK around 10.30pm (I remember it being a late news item on News At Ten).

[brian05]

And I have just got the figures from the compilers for the two Beatles tracks that week.
651,000
220,000
So that solves that!

These compilers must have been very clever people to get actual sales figures from every shop in the UK.

Can you reveal their identity?

[Graham76man]

Full information on them is on the Real Chart site, under the title "what is the Real Chart".

[Robbie]

These compilers must have been very clever people to get actual sales figures from every shop in the UK.

Can you reveal their identity?

There's an entire thread about this, from back in 2010!

[Splodj]

There was an embarrassing period for Radio 1 in the 80s when its Sunday chart show had a survey week well behind Independent Radio's Sunday chart show broadcast at the same time but using a survey week end of the previous day. I seem to recall a charity record (Band Aid?) that made number one on 2 days sales in the latter but was nowhere at all in the former.

[Graham76man]

The Network Chart was always revealed on Sunday on ILR and was always ahead of the of the other chart broadcast at the same time on Radio One. Most of the Local Radio stations that broadcast an actual local sales chart, were also ahead of the Official Chart.
The catch up chart came on Tuesday afterwards.
When you looked in the Number One paper for the Network chart that was always the previous Sunday Chart. But when you looked in Record Mirror that was the top 40 that would be broadcast by Radio One on Sunday.
It wasn't till much later when Gallup made the chart ready to be broadcast for the Sunday top 40. However this would lead to the decline in Top of The Pops, it was no longer was revealing the top 30 or 40 on Thursday, just what had been on Radio One the previous Sunday. Plus Record Mirror was doing the same.

[Graham76man]

We did have a much better postal system back then of course with Sunday collections so I imagine everything would be received back at MM HQ on a Monday morning.

What day did all the music papers go to press / be on sale back then? I know Music Week went to press on a Tuesday afternoon in the 70s with the BMRB charts being the final part of the magazine to be prepared for printing. I think most of the magazine was ready to print the previous Friday unless there was a massive breaking story. Elvis Presley did on a Tuesdsay evening UK time and it didn't make that week's Music Week. Record Mirror did carry the news in the 20/08/77 issue but that is because Record Mirror went to press overnight on a Tuesday evening / Wednesday morning. I think the news of his death was reported in the UK around 10.30pm (I remember it being a late news item on News At Ten).

The publication day was always Thursday for the papers, but they carried the Saturday day. The reason being that paper would be sent out to the printers Wednesday to be intime for delivery to the news stands by Thursday. The Charts page in Record Mirror would have laid out Tuesday afternoon. When there was a bank holiday they were so busy doing the rest of the paper on Tuesday they couldn't do the charts and so reprinted last weeks charts.
Even in the 60's Disc on the new singles page would say a record was out Tomorrow - Friday, because they knew it would being read by Thursday.
It was always possible to fit quickly some paste ups in the copy, by removing something that could wait and using scissors to fit the typed text into the cleared space - for the deaths etc.

It wasn't uncommon to print many papers in the night.

[Robbie]

^
I remember when I started to buy Record Mirror each week in the mid 70s the newsagent would sometimes have the paper on a Thursday morning which I would buy on my way to school. Sometimes though it would be the Friday when it came in. Notably, one issue in January 1979 took well over a week to get to the newsagents because the whole of the country was hit by severe snowstorms (what a brilliant month that was!). As I'd bought every issue since September 1975 I thought it was going to be the first one I hadn't been able to get but the newsagent went the extra mile to get a copy sent to the shop just for me.

[kingofskiffle]

I like stories like that

[Robbie]

There was an embarrassing period for Radio 1 in the 80s when its Sunday chart show had a survey week well behind Independent Radio's Sunday chart show broadcast at the same time but using a survey week end of the previous day. I seem to recall a charity record (Band Aid?) that made number one on 2 days sales in the latter but was nowhere at all in the former.

That was down to the fact that until October 1987 the new chart was compiled on a Tuesday* and was broadcast for the first time by Radio 1 at 12.45pm (and for when Monday was a Bank Holiday it was pushed back to the Wednesday). The Sunday chart countdown on Radio 1 was a recap of that chart.

* From May 1986 the chart was actually compiled on a Sunday but the industry were reluctant to have a different chart reveal date. Independent Radio had the Network Chart which was broadcast on a Sunday with a chart week that I think ran Monday to Thursday. The chart was compiled on a Friday and for part of 1986 was first unveiled on the then Channel 4 TV programme The Chart Show which was on late afternoon on the Friday.

As listening figures fell due to many teenagers switching to the Network Chart Show, Radio 1 put pressure on the industry to agree to the chart reveal day being switched to a Sunday. Once the chart panel had expanded in mid 1987 there was no need for Gallup to spend Mondays doing security checks on the new entries and fast climbers as the panel was now large enough to do these checks as part of the chart compilation process rather than phoning record shops not on the chart panel.

Strangely, the increased turnover rate of the charts started at roughly the time the chart switched from a Tuesday to a Sunday. Records began to enter in higher and higher positions and records also started to have a much shorter chart life. Coincidence? Maybe but a friend of mine who owned a record shop for most of the 80s said that reps became more aggressive in their marketing of records around the time the chart reveal day changed and it was like they were all out aiming for a top 40 position first week out rather than being content with a record entering a lowly top 75 position and climbing up through the charts. Before that, although a record might be released near the start of the week it was often the case that new stock didn't arrive until later in the week. Suddenly new stock was arriving earlier in the week which meant records could have more impact sales wise in the first week of being on sale and therefore they started to enter much higher up the chart.

I still can't get used to the new OCC chart being on a Friday now. It was strange when the chart reveal day was brought forward by a couple of days in october 1987 but everyone quickly accepted it. Moving it to a Friday still sits uneasiliy with many chart fans. Friday to Thursday just doesn't feel like a natural chart sales week.

[MrTibbs]

Although I'm down by the pool right now enjoying the sun and 30 degree temperatures with frequent refreshments naturally, I'm keeping up with everything going on here.

I'm with Brian's comment above though, these whispers from 'compilers' about sales from shops can't be substantiated. If evidence is there let us all see it, be transparent, otherwise the information is entirely subjective and unsubstantiated.

[Graham76man]

They only shifted it so that acts could go straight into number one. Back in the days when an act would have a huge following that would buy the record largely in the first week of release. But the concept was obsolete within two years. They had this fear that acts would ignore the new Friday day just to get the number one. But they do that anyway!
And I don't believe they get anyway near the audience for the Friday chart show as they would do on a Sunday.

[Robbie]

They only shifted it so that acts could go straight into number one. Back in the days when an act would have a huge following that would buy the record largely in the first week of release. But the concept was obsolete within two years. They had this fear that acts would ignore the new Friday day just to get the number one. But they do that anyway!
And I don't believe they get anyway near the audience for the Friday chart show as they would do on a Sunday.

I think the Friday chart show gets about 2 to 3 million listeners which is probably more than the Sunday chart show was getting. I know the Sunday chart show audience fell below 2 minllion at one stage. The fact that the audience isn't now split between two or three rival chart shows helps too.

[Splodj]

There has been a lot of controversy within the radio industry about what is the best time for a chart show. Sunday teatime used to be the favourite because of the POTP tradition and because it was naturally a low audience time but people were available to listen if there was something special - which the chart was. So audience figures got up to match the normal weekly peak of 10-12 Sunday morning. When the Top 40 with Bruno Brookes had 8 million listeners that was claimed to be the highest radio audience in Europe, although it was a bit misleading because many people just tuned in for the final bit.

For many years Capital Radio was convinced that the best time was Saturday morning, when you could be the first to capture listeners for the weekend.

[Robbie]

There has been a lot of controversy within the radio industry about what is the best time for a chart show. Sunday teatime used to be the favourite because of the POTP tradition and because it was naturally a low audience time but people were available to listen if there was something special - which the chart was. So audience figures got up to match the normal weekly peak of 10-12 Sunday morning. When the Top 40 with Bruno Brookes had 8 million listeners that was claimed to be the highest radio audience in Europe, although it was a bit misleading because many people just tuned in for the final bit.

For many years Capital Radio was convinced that the best time was Saturday morning, when you could be the first to capture listeners for the weekend.

Saturday morning used to be the favourite time for nearly all the ILR stations. My local ILR (Metro Radio in Newcastle) had its chart show from something like 9am to midday on a Saturday. When I lived in London and was going back to the north east to visit family and friends I would often get the Saturday morning train from Kings Cross and it was good to hear the various countdowns that I could pick up along the East Coast Main Line.Of course I never got to hear all of any one particular local countdown but it was interesting to see how certain records sold well in one area but failed to match the same position on a national level.

The Network Chart was compiled on a Friday simply so that Capital and the other ILR stations had a chart to broadcast on a Saturday morning. Metro Radio started its top 40 countdown in, I think, May 1976. I'm not sure who the compiler was. It may have been compiled by the station in the early days but at some point I think it was compiled by Radio & Record News (the charts were posted here two or three years ago, the national chart with the positions of where the records were in each region). I do remember in the early days the north east chart being slightly behind the BMRB chart except when it came to rock records.

The OCC chart report still lists sales for each ITV region though as these are only physical sales they are totally irrelevant for singles. There are so few local radio stations now anyway that even if it were still possible to compile a local chart there would be very few stations to actually broadcast it. The regional number 1s on the singles chart don't reveal anything of interest any longer as so few chart singles get a physical release. The physical singles sales chart tends to be dominated by records that fail to even make the unpublished top 200 (the one that has no ACR rules or 3 tracks per artist limit) let alone the official top 100 chart with its ACR rules and 3 tracks per artist limit. There are only 5 records in the official Top 100 that are available to physically purchase. In the unpublished top 200 there are only 9 singles that are available to physically purchase.

[Graham76man]

I think most of the ILR stations broadcasted a top 40 at some point. Some were completely made up like Capitol Radio's chart. Other used local shops and an airplay element. But most used just a sales chart from local shops. My own Radio Hallam started with a top 40. As Robbie says between 9 and 12 Saturday. But in 1977 they repeated the chart on Sunday between 2pm and 5pm. The reason for this was the taping people. They would play three tracks in a row, without the DJ talking till the end of the last track. Later in the 1980's the chart was extended to a top 50. Running 2pm till 6pm.
I remember Alan Jones in Record Mirror commenting on the Yorkshire stations charts all having in the top 40 and some high up of the Kelly Marie future number one. When it wasn't in the top 75 at all.
Both Hallam and Pennine had Barnsley Bill in the top 40. Pennine had Lee Majors - The Unknown Stuntman in the chart. The TV series was more popular in Yorkshire! Strangely enough I remember nearly all the Radio One DJ's that made a record all failed to chart!
Of course downloads killed off any remaining local charts.

[Splodj]

'Radiomonitor' provide airplay charts which can be localised.

[Robbie]

'Radiomonitor' provide airplay charts which can be localised.

They can but many stations are no longer local. Most stations outside of breakfast and drive are quasi-national stations with just local advertising. The programme is usually broadcast from London or Manchester. I miss the days of local ILR when each station had its own character and which really did serve the local community.

[Splodj]

Returning to OCCs comment on 'I want to hold your hand', the strength of feeling about this at the time is reflected in what happened with the BBC chart. The BBC felt so stung by RR preventing them from having it come in at number one in their composite chart that they introduced the 'odd one out' rule to ensure that RR would not embarrass them in this way again.

[MrTibbs]

But, in many respects the BBC's own chart ironically was just as weak as the RR.Chart. It was inconsistent, it was error ridden, and the 'odd one out ' rule was only brought in at that time to keep up with the music papers and favour The Beatles and only applied to #1 singles. Why not also apply this principle to #2 etc also if it was so important a rule to have in place. It was just another 'make it up as you go along' chart as all BBC charts were with ever changing rules.