The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40)[1] is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV (Official UK Top 40), is the UK music industry's recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind, today surveying over 15,000 retailers and digital services daily, capturing 99.9% of all singles consumed in Britain across the week, and over 98% of albums.[2] To be eligible for the chart, a single is currently defined by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as either a 'single bundle' having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes or one digital audio track not longer than 15 minutes with a minimum sale price of 40 pence.[3] The rules have changed many times as technology has developed, the most notable being the inclusion of digital downloads in 2005 and streaming in July 2014.[4]
The Top 40 chart is first issued on Friday afternoons by BBC Radio 1 as The Official Chart from 16:00 to 17:45, before the full Official Singles Chart Top 100 is posted on the Official Charts Company's website.[7] A rival chart show, The Official Big Top 40, is broadcast on Sunday afternoons from 16:00 to 19:00 on Capital and Heart stations across the United Kingdom. The Official Big Top 40 is based on Apple data only, (Apple Music streams and iTunes downloads) plus commercial radio airplay across the Global radio network.
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The UK Singles Chart began to be compiled in 1952. According to the Official Charts Company's statistics, as of 1 July 2012, 1,200 singles have topped the UK Singles Chart.[8] The precise number of chart-toppers is debatable due to the profusion of competing charts from the 1950s to the 1980s, but the usual list used is that endorsed by the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and subsequently adopted by the Official Charts Company. The company regards a select period of the New Musical Express chart (only from 1952 to 1960) and the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969 as predecessors for the period up to 11 February 1969, where multiples of competing charts (none official) coexisted side by side. For example, the BBC compiled its own chart based on an average of the music papers of the time; many songs announced as having reached number one on BBC Radio and Top of the Pops before 1969 are not listed as chart-toppers according to the legacy criteria of the Charts Company.
In March 1960, Record Retailer began compiling an EP chart and had a Top 50 singles chart.[16] Although NME had the largest circulation of charts in the 1960s and was widely followed,[10][17] in March 1962, Record Mirror stopped compiling its own chart and published Record Retailer's instead.[10] Retailer began independent auditing in January 1963, and has been used by the UK Singles Chart as the source for number-ones from the week ending 12 March 1960 onwards.[13][16] The choice of Record Retailer as the source has been criticised;[18][10] however, the chart was unique in listing close to 50 positions for the whole decade.[18] With available lists of which record shops were sampled to compile the charts, some shops were subjected to "hyping" but, with Record Retailer being less widely followed than some charts, it was subject to less hyping. Additionally, Retailer was set up by independent record shops and had no funding or affiliation with record companies. However, it had a significantly smaller sample size than some rival charts[10] and had all the EPs taken out the listings between March 1960 - December 1967 (the data for the now 'Official' 1960s EP chart can be found in The Virgin Book of British Hit Singles).[19][20]
Before 1969 there was no official singles chart.[10][17][18] Record Retailer and the BBC commissioned the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) to compile charts, beginning 15 February 1969.[10][13] The BMRB compiled its first chart from postal returns of sales logs from 250 record shops.[13] The sampling cost approximately 52,000; shops were randomly chosen from a pool of approximately 6,000, and submitted figures for sales taken up to the close of trade on Saturday. The sales diaries were translated into punch cards so the data could be interpreted by a computer. A computer then compiled the chart on Monday, and the BBC were informed of the Top 50 on Tuesday in time for it to be announced on Johnnie Walker's afternoon show. The charts were also published in Record Retailer (rebranded Record & Tape Retailer in 1971 and Music Week in 1972)[30] and Record Mirror.[10] However, the BMRB often struggled to have the full sample of sales figures returned by post. The 1971 postal strike meant data had to be collected by telephone (and that the chart was reduced to a Top 40 during this period),[31] but this was deemed inadequate for a national chart; by 1973, the BMRB was using motorcycle couriers to collect sales figures.[10] In March 1978, two record industry publications, Radio & Record News and Record Business both started publishing Top 100 singles charts, so in response, in May 1978, the BMRB singles chart was expanded from a Top 50 to a Top 75, while abolishing the system where some falling records were excluded from the 41-50 section, as well as abandoning the additional list of 10 "Breakers". Earlier that year, the Daily Mirror and the BBC's Nationwide television programme both investigated chart hyping, where record company representatives allegedly purchased records from chart return shops. A World in Action documentary exposé in 1980 also revealed corruption within the industry; stores' chart-returns dealers would frequently be offered bribes to falsify sales logs.[32]
From 1983 to 1990, the chart was financed by the British Phonographic Industry (50 percent), Music Week (38 percent) and the BBC (12 percent).[33] On 4 January 1983, the chart compilation was assumed by the Gallup Organization, which expanded the public/Music Week chart to a Top 100 (with a "Next 25" in addition to the Top 75),[nb 2] with the full Top 200[35] being available to people within the industry. Gallup also began the introduction of computerised compilers, automating the data-collection process.[10][13] Later in the year, the rules about the kind of free gifts that could come with singles were tightened, as the chart compilers came to the conclusion that a lot of consumers were buying certain releases for the T-shirts that came with them and not the actual record (stickers were also banned). However, bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood were still able to release their singles over a wide range of formats including picture discs and various remixes, with ZTT Records putting out "Two Tribes" over eight formats in 1984.[36][37][38]
In June 1987,[35] double pack singles were banned as a format with four-track singles having to be released as a single vinyl 7 inch EP and all singles needing to be under 20 minutes in length, as releases longer than 20 minutes would be classed as an album (with most longer EPs falling into the budget albums category). In July 1987, Gallup signed a new agreement with the BPI, increasing the sample size to approximately 500 stores and introducing barcode scanners to read data.[39] The chart was based entirely on sales of vinyl single records from retail outlets and announced on Tuesday until October 1987, when the Top 40 was revealed each Sunday (due to the new, automated process).[40]
The growth of dance music culture in the late 1980s had resulted in records with many remixes, though with a single only officially running to 20 minutes this meant that many of the European-style maxi-singles could not be included. Therefore, in June 1991,[57] the rules were amended to include maxi-singles with versions/remixes of one song lasting 40 minutes, standard four track/four song releases getting an extra five minutes playing time, and now four formats contributing to the chart position. Due to this ruling, ambient duo The Orb were able to have a Top Ten hit with "Blue Room", a song that was three seconds short of 40 minutes.[citation needed]
In the late 1990s, the singles chart became more 'frontloaded', with many releases peaking in the first couple of weeks on chart. This helped Irish girl group B*Witched become the first pop band to debut at the top with each of their first four releases (with the group's singles found at number one in the period between June 1998 to March 1999).[71][72][73][74][75] Between 1963 and the 1990s, only a few acts had reached number one with their first three chart hits. In the late 1990s, The Spice Girls[76] and current record holders Westlife[77][78] also outperformed this feat, with the former getting six and the latter seven number ones from the start of their careers.
In 1999, Millward Brown began "re-chipping" some retailers' machines, in anticipation of the millennium bug.[79] However, some independent retailers lost access to the record-label-funded Electronic Record Ordering System (Eros); it was "too costly to make it Year 2000 compliant".[80] Towards the end of the 1990s companies anticipated distributing singles over the Internet, following the example of Beggars Banquet and Liquid Audio (who made 2,000 tracks available for digital download in the US).[81]
On the Official Singles Chart for 22 September 2001, DJ Otzi's "Hey Baby"[82][83] became the first single ever to jump to number one from outside the Top 40 when it went from number 45 to number one. "Hey Baby" had charted for seven weeks outside the Top 40 due to imported copies from the Republic of Ireland being available in UK chart shops and the fact that the officially released UK single had the same catalogue number as the Irish import, meaning that the CIN (Chart Information Network) did not list the two versions as separate versions, as they had done with ATB's "9 PM (Till I Come)",[84] which had charted as five separate entries before the official release reached number one. 2ff7e9595c
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