The Ultimate Averaged Chart - The BBC Chart Re-Imagined

[MrTibbs]

Where I personally think TUAC succeeds is by doing exactly what it says on the title 'Re Imagining The BBC Chart'

As you guys highlight above again The BBC chart itself was error and tie ridden made more problematic by discovering the typos in the BBC charts from Dave and Trevor and therefore not fit for purpose.

Where TUAC comes into its own is that it takes the original BBC chart and polishes it up removing errors and ties and making it more robust. It keeps by and large the guiding principle of averaging the BBC used but adds another layer to reflect music paper sample size and factor in another level of mathematical data relevant to producing an all embracing chart.

The proof and evidence of where I think it succeeds is in the fact that it does not hugely differ from the BBC findings so stays true to the averaging principle yet delivers a more accurate and error free chart to us all.

With the evidence we currently have to go on from that era it ticks all the boxes as the most thorough chart of the time we have to date.

[Splodj]

Adding a BBC points column (which I have done many times on my own spreadsheet, as you may have gathered from my comments!) shows a load of questionable ties and non-ties. I don't know whether the additional clutter would be justified by what it reveals.

There are three cases identified so far where I think there is overwhelming evidence for a typo ...
(1) was confirmed by the original tape;
(2) was where a tie at number one did not make sense because all the contributory charts had straight ones and straight twos;
(3) having no number 7 and a tie at 8 does not make sense, in addition to the scores for 8 being wide apart.

[brian05]

Good to see this one enter.

NEW 30 'Til There Was You - Peggy Lee

Later recorded by a well known group (whose name escapes me).

[RokinRobinOfLocksley]

The BBC chart made an error this week. It did not list a #7 but listed 2 records at '8 then continued with #9, #10 and so on.

Just had a thought, Brian. What do you think about adding an extra BBC 'sum of inverse points' column to your ultimate spreadsheet chart? For the charts that the BBC was actually using for the current time period, i.e., where we are in 1961 = NME, MM, Disc. This would allow us to inspect the BBC point totals, and better see if there were other possible BBC errors, or Dave/Trevor file typos. There could be the rare Dave/Trevor math error as well. A BBC 'inverse sum' would expose possible blips of all kinds, offering us the chance to explore and correct the D/T BBC file if need be. (Of course we'd also want to check the found audio files and fan write downs before amending the D/T file.) Just a thought...

[Splodj]

It is true to that there was a difference between the number of stores used by a compiler and the returns used in a particular week. But Alan Smith was alive to this, and he specified both the higher numbers for the stores and the lower numbers for the samples that Brian correctly uses.

[MrTibbs]

I think that is the case too Splodj. I just wanted to flag it up .

[Splodj]

Rather than the BBC making an error, I think another transcription error is more likely - with Exodus's 8 being a typo for 7.

[MrTibbs]

It would seem that Elvis has won then ! He claims the top spot and The Allisons are relegated to a second week at #3. But is their challenge over

[MrTibbs]

The BBC chart made an error this week. It did not list a #7 but listed 2 records at '8 then continued with #9, #10 and so on.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending March 25th 1961

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending March 25th 1961								NME	RM	MM	DISC	RR	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey				Stores	80	60	110	50	30	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC				TOP	30	Scored
2	1	Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley					1	1	1	1	1	1	9900
1	2	Walk Right Back / Ebony Eyes - The Everly Brothers					2	3	2	2	2	2	9490
3	3	Are You Sure - The Allisons					3	2	3	3	4	3	9270
4	4	Theme For A Dream - Cliff Richard					4	4	4	4	3	4	8960
9	5	My Kind Of Girl - Matt Monro					5	5	7	5	6	5	8410
5	6	Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles					6	6	5	6	5	6	8360
12	7	Exodus - Ferrante and Teicher					8	7	6	7	8	9	7870
7	8	(Ghost) Riders In The Sky - The Ramrods					8	10	8	10	9	8	7160
6	9	F.B.I. - The Shadows					9	12	10	11	7	7	6900
17	10	And The Heavens Cried - Anthony Newley					10	9	11	9	13	12	6850
11	11	Wheels - The String-A-Longs					12	11	12	12	16	13	6120
10	12	Who Am I / This Is It - Adam Faith					11	16	20	8	12	11	5940
24	13	Lazy River - Bobby Darin					14=	8	9	15	18	23	5810
8	14	Sailor - Petula Clark					14=	17	13	14	10	10	5750
14	15	Samantha - Kenny Ball					13	14	13	13	14	17	5690
13	16	Calendar Girl - Neil Sedaka					16	13	15	17	11	15	5420
19	17	Marry Me - Mike Preston					18	18	16	16	20	14	4650
20	18	Baby Sittin' Boogie - Buzz Clifford					20	24	17	19	19	22	3590
15	19	Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley					17	20		18	15	16	3560
21	20	Goodnight Mrs Flintstone - The Piltdown Men					19	15	19			21	2300
NEW	21	Seventy Six Trombones - The King Brothers						22		20		24	2140
16	22	Ja-Da - Johnny and The Hurricanes						23			17	20	1670
18	23	Let's Jump The Broomstick - Brenda Lee						21				18	1190
26	24	Exodus - Semprini						18				27	1160
29	25	Warpaint - The Brook Brothers						30	17				920
NEW	26	Where The Boys Are - Connie Francis						24				26	710
27	27	African Waltz - Johnny Dankworth						27				19	680
22	28	Gather In The Mushrooms / Pepy's Diary - Benny Hill						28				25	420
23	29	Dream Girl - Mark Wynter						26					400
NEW	30	'Til There Was You - Peggy Lee						29					160
		I Count The Tears - The Drifters										28	90
		Pepe - Duane Eddy										29	60
		You're Sixteen - Johnny Burnette										30	30
													0
		The BBC chart made an error this week. It did not list a #7 but listed 2 records at '8 then continued with #9, #10 and so on.											0

[MrTibbs]

We will never know the exact number of returns each music paper received week on week but we do know the stated sample for each is the figure I use and therefore it is the proportion difference between each chart that is the important factor therefore even if I halved or even quartered the returns I use the outcome would still be the same.

[Metalweb]

Yes, would have been far more practical to determine sales from a weekly stocktake than try to record each sale on an individual basis....

[Graham76man]

Isn't it rather odd the shops were ever asked to provide a list of their best sellers?

To do this accurately a shop would need to record all sales during the week, then go through the info and assemble a chart.

Had the compilers simply asked for a list of sales this would mean less work for the shop and the compilers could have aggregated the individual returns into a more accurate combined chart....

Record shops work on the basis of buying records from record companies and selling them back to the public for say three times the price. So in many ways they needed to know how many records they sold. They also needed to do this for tax purposes too.
I suspect they recorded sales by looking at stock levels and then counting what was left at the end of the week. Some stores were more efficient than others at doing this. It's recorded that Brian Epstein at NEMS even devised a special system so he knew when to order more records. We also know that NEMS took part in the Record Mirror survey. So I bet the return from that store was great. Interestingly enough if other charts used NEMS it would prove that the story that they all used different shops to be false. I certainly believe this to be a lie and that the same shops were supplying the same charts. Only Record Mirror at one time named the dealers, they requested the others to so, but they never did. My bet is that we would have seen several stores sending the same lists to several papers.
Till receipts probably only stated the money and date at this time and were no use in recording individual sales. But did record overall sales of course.

[Graham76man]

Brian you do realise that what you are saying is why the chart compilers would never have used all the shops you base your figures on. In all surveys be it polls or sales you have to have more participants than you actually need. If you require 20 shops to take part to get a reasonably accurate picture of whatever you will end with, you need about 50 to 60 on the books to be certain of getting what you want. As some will only fill in say a quarter of the results or simply send in the top ten of a form for 50 records. Some of the shops might even have stated each record and the amounts sold too. Because some people are like that. If any of the papers got full 50 charts from ALL the number on the books and on time too! Then that would be a miracle. The vast majority would arrive late, covered in tea and coffee stains or worse! And be filled in by what looks like a spider with a pen in each of it's legs! Clearly some of the dealers didn't know the difference between an album and a single. Hence that weird effect. So if the papers were lucky you could a top 50 from 20 dealers. The rest were trash.
The way to ensure a correctly filled out list from a dealer was to offer discounts on advertisements. Certainly by the 60's being a shop that supplied one of the papers could result in discounts from the record companies themselves, especially if the shop would add records that were not actually selling to the return. Of course when the Official Charts entered the scene, being a chart shop was much more profitable than not being one. Especially for those not connected with superstores.

[MrTibbs]

I agree with all comments above. Until the mid sixties record charts were seen as a fun part of the business and although much enjoyed and followed nobody paid much attention as to the accuracy of how they were compiled or methodology or took them too seriously. Then things changed and the business became aware of how charts could be used to promote and sell records for them and the era of manipulation and hyping began, which followed through to store manipulation and bribing etc etc and the fun and innocence of the charts was gone. From then till now the charts were hijacked by the industry not to reflect popularity but to market and sell artists and records as a product and make lots of cash for them. The charts are used for that now much as in the same way TV adverts are used to sell a packet of soap powder.

[Splodj]

In the Sun's 1964 survey they asked 250 stores to provide actual sales figures and only 70 did, with the rest providing simply an ordered list. This indicates how difficult it would have been to get sales figures. The Sun also showed the chart that resulted from using only the sales figures, and it did not vary much from their overall chart.

[Gambo]

I must say in my early years of interest in the historical (i.e. before I was born!) British charts I naively assumed that is what would've happened - those who compiled the charts from whatever music paper did so based on actual numbers (or at least those reported by stores whether or not they were truthful), not by getting each contributing store to compile it's own in-house chart without figures and then submit that to derive an overall point score to assign rankings. If only it had been that way around. Though I suspect that the reason MrTibbs gave earlier as to why many shops probably wouldn't provide an accurate or complete list of their Top 30 (and certainly 50) sellers each and every week applied just as evenly to the five music journals who compiled what purported to be national charts - they were in the business of compiling numerous reports on what was happening in their industry more widely and selling as many copies of their papers as possible, and so their staff would've also had limited time to devote to sorting through numerous sales tallies from tens of different record shops to compile a weekly chart based on them, especially in the era before any significant computers were available to help simplify and shorten such a tedious task. Much easier to let the stores do the heavy lifting, place an unrealistic amount of trust in them being correct, and then just total-up the points.

[Metalweb]

Isn't it rather odd the shops were ever asked to provide a list of their best sellers?

To do this accurately a shop would need to record all sales during the week, then go through the info and assemble a chart.

Had the compilers simply asked for a list of sales this would mean less work for the shop and the compilers could have aggregated the individual returns into a more accurate combined chart....

[MrTibbs]

The number of places asked for must have been at least the size of the chart. Especially if you did a top 50. Otherwise you could finish up with a little over the size of the asking amount. Especially if the shops were nearly all in agreement on the big sellers. When you were doing the tallies of the shops based on top tens you couldn't get to the 50 needed for Record Retailer.
Certainly by the mid 60's they were asking for 50 positions, the TV show said that. I don't know if NME was asking for that amount, since they never extended the 30 till the 1980's.

It was still possible I think. When I think back to the early RM dealer returns there were hardly any that agreed in any shape or form. Each always had at least a few different records not in any other so there would be a wide spread in total. I just can't see any store sitting down and filling in a return week on week listing fifty titles.

[MrTibbs]

I think that prior to the 'split side' changeover there was a period of confusion about it across the board including NME. This is why I have this image of them discussing the matter, with NME even more determinedly splitting sides after that period of confusion, and the others going in the opposite direction.

It cannot certainly be a coincidence that RM, MM, Disc all stopped around the same time, so yeah a meeting was possible, or did one break rank and the others immediately followed, except NME.

Many later problems also would have been solved if the music papers all came on board, like when the BMRB took over chart compilation and the MM and NME were also invited to contribute but declined. They maybe later regretted this decision when EVENTUALLY the BMRB did become the prominent chart and theirs became marginalised.

[Graham76man]

The number of places asked for must have been at least the size of the chart. Especially if you did a top 50. Otherwise you could finish up with a little over the size of the asking amount. Especially if the shops were nearly all in agreement on the big sellers. When you were doing the tallies of the shops based on top tens you couldn't get to the 50 needed for Record Retailer.
Certainly by the mid 60's they were asking for 50 positions, the TV show said that. I don't know if NME was asking for that amount, since they never extended the 30 till the 1980's.

[Splodj]

I think that prior to the 'split side' changeover there was a period of confusion about it across the board including NME. This is why I have this image of them discussing the matter, with NME even more determinedly splitting sides after that period of confusion, and the others going in the opposite direction.

[MrTibbs]

The battle has commenced but the war is not over ! Elvis draws first blood pushing The Allisons out of the way and Cliff is a casualty too edged out of the top three.

[MrTibbs]

Here is the next Ultimate Averaged Chart for Week Ending March 18th 1961

The Ultimate Averaged Chart - Week Ending March 18th 1961								NME	RM	MM	DISC	RR	Total
Last	This		The Sound Survey				Stores	80	60	110	50	30	Points
Week	Week		The Top 30 Singles Chart				BBC				TOP	30	Scored
1	1	Walk Right Back / Ebony Eyes - The Everly Brothers					1	1	1	1	1	1	9900
10	2	Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley					2	3	2	2	2	4	9430
2	3	Are You Sure - The Allisons					3	4	3	3	3	2	9190
3	4	Theme For A Dream - Cliff Richard					4	2	4	4	4	3	9100
4	5	Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles					5	5	5	5	5	5	8580
6	6	F.B.I. - The Shadows					7	8	6	8	7	6	7820
8	7	(Ghost) Riders In The Sky - The Ramrods					6	10	7	6	6	9	7780
5	8	Sailor - Petula Clark					8	9	10	7	8	11	7410
14	9	My Kind Of Girl - Matt Monro					9	6	9	10	12	10	7210
9	10	Who Am I / This Is It - Adam Faith					10	11	11	9	10	7	6990
12	11	Wheels - The String-A-Longs					15	16	12	12	13	8	6020
23	12	Exodus - Ferrante and Teicher					14	7	8	15	19	20	5990
11	13	Calendar Girl - Neil Sedaka					12	13	13	14	11	12	5960
13	14	Samantha - Kenny Ball					13	14	14	13	14	14	5720
7	15	Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley					11	12		11	9	13	5360
15	16	Ja-Da - Johnny and The Hurricanes					16	18		17	15	16	3830
NEW	17	And The Heavens Cried - Anthony Newley					18	15	16	18		28	3700
16	18	Let's Jump The Broomstick - Brenda Lee					19	17		20	20	15	3360
20	19	Marry Me - Mike Preston					17	25		16	16	21	3180
24	20	Baby Sittin' Boogie - Buzz Clifford						21	19	19		23	3080
NEW	21	Goodnight Mrs Flintstone - The Piltdown Men						20	18				1660
18	22	Gather In The Mushrooms / Pepy's Diary - Benny Hill						24			18	17	1630
22	23	Dream Girl - Mark Wynter						23	15				1600
NEW	24	Lazy River - Bobby Darin						22	17				1560
17	25	Rubber Ball - Bobby Vee					20	29			17	22	1130
NEW	26	Exodus - Semprini						19					960
27	27	African Waltz - Johnny Dankworth						26				18	790
19	28	You're Sixteen - Johnny Burnette						27				19	680
NEW	29	Warpaint - The Brook Brothers							20				660
21	30	Mystery Girl - Jess Conrad						28				29	300
		Pepe - Duane Eddy						30				24	290
		New Orleans - The U. S. Bonds										25	180
		A Scottish Soldier - Andy Stewart										26	150
		Seventy Six Trombones - The King Brothers										27	120
		Buona Sera - Mr. Acker Bilk										30	30

[MrTibbs]

There does seem to be a particular time, from memory I think it is March 1958, when the non-NME charts did not split the sides. Almost as if they had a meeting about it and all but NME agreed.

Yes that was the case, all originally split the sides, a hangover from the days when songs were more important than the record, but at that time, MM, Disc, and RM all listed the record with split sides combined. Only, NME held out.