UK Single Charts

The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) 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. 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. 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.

The OCC website contains the Top 100 chart. Some media outlets only list the Top 40 (such as the BBC, with their Radio 1 show following the lead of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 in the 1970s) or the Top 75 (such as ''Music Week'' magazine, with all records in the Top 75 described as 'hits') of this list. The chart week runs from 00:01 Friday to midnight Thursday.

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. 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.

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. 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.

The first number one on the UK Singles Chart was "Here in My Heart" by Al Martino for the week ending 14 November 1952. As of the week ending 29 December 2022, the UK Singles Chart has had 1405 different number one hits. The current number one is "Food Aid" by LadBaby.

History

Early charts

Before the compilation of sales of records, the music market measured a song's popularity by sales of sheet music. The idea of compiling a chart based on sales originated in the United States, where the music-trade paper ''Billboard'' compiled the first chart incorporating sales figures on 20 July 1940. Record charts in the UK began in 1952, when Percy Dickins of the ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') gathered a pool of 52 stores willing to report sales figures. For the first British chart Dickins telephoned approximately 20 shops, asking for a list of the 10 best-selling songs. These results were then aggregated into a Top 12 chart published in ''NME'' on 14 November 1952, with Al Martino's "Here in My Heart" awarded the number-one position. The chart became a successful feature of the periodical; it expanded into a Top 20 format on 1 October 1954, and rival publications began compiling their own charts in 1955. ''Record Mirror'' compiled its own Top 10 chart for 22 January 1955; it was based on postal returns from record stores (which were financed by the newspaper). The ''NME'' chart was based on a telephone poll. Both charts expanded in size, with ''Mirror''s becoming a Top 20 in October 1955 and ''NME''s becoming a Top 30 in April 1956. Another rival publication, ''Melody Maker'', began compiling its own chart; it telephoned 19 stores to produce a Top 20 for 7 April 1956. It was also the first chart to include Northern Ireland in its sample.
''Record Mirror'' began running a Top 5 album chart in July 1956; from November 1958 onwards ''Melody Maker'' printed the Top 10 albums.

In March 1960, ''Record Retailer'' began compiling an EP chart and had a Top 50 singles chart. Although ''NME'' had the largest circulation of charts in the 1960s and was widely followed, in March 1962, ''Record Mirror'' stopped compiling its own chart and published ''Record Retailer''s instead. ''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. The choice of ''Record Retailer'' as the source has been criticised; however, the chart was unique in listing close to 50 positions for the whole decade. 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 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'').

On 12 August 1961, 14-year-old Helen Shapiro became the youngest female solo artist to top the chart with her single "You Don't Know" and, as of 14 January 2022, one of nine female solo artists to have topped the chart before their 18th birthday (though none of these nine acts wrote their number one hit single-handedly, with that honour falling to 19-year-old Kate Bush with "Wuthering Heights" in 1978).

In 1963, Merseybeat band Gerry And The Pacemakers would become the first act to get their first three hits at number one, an achievement not matched for another twenty years.

Before February 1969 – when the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) chart was established – there was no official chart or universally accepted source. Readers followed the charts in various periodicals and, during this time, the BBC used aggregated results of charts from the ''NME'', ''Melody Maker'', '' Disc'' and (later) ''Record Mirror'' to compile the ''Pick of the Pops'' chart. The Official Charts Company and their various ''Hit Singles'' books (whether published by Guinness/HiT Entertainment or Virgin), use as sources for the unofficial period, the ''NME'' before 10 March 1960 and ''Record Retailer'' until 1969.

However, until 1969 the ''Record Retailer'' chart was mainly seen by people working in the industry. The most widely circulated chart was the NME one, as used by Radio Luxembourg's Sunday night ''Top 20'' show, as well as by ABC TV's '' Thank Your Lucky Stars'', which had an audience of up to 6 million on ITV.

Official chart

Before 1969 there was no official singles chart. ''Record Retailer'' and the BBC commissioned the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) to compile charts, beginning 15 February 1969. The BMRB compiled its first chart from postal returns of sales logs from 250 record shops. 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) and ''Record Mirror''. 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), but this was deemed inadequate for a national chart; by 1973, the BMRB was using motorcycle couriers to collect sales figures. 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.

Electronic-age charts: the Gallup era

From 1983 to 1990, the chart was financed by the British Phonographic Industry (50 percent), ''Music Week'' (38 percent) and the BBC (12 percent). 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), with the full Top 200 being available to people within the industry. Gallup also began the introduction of computerised compilers, automating the data-collection process. 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.

In June 1987, 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. 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).

The 1980s also saw the introduction of the cassette single (or "cassingle") alongside the 7-inch and 12-inch record formats; in 1987, major record labels developed a common format for the compact disc single, which was allowed to count as a chart format from December 1987. In May 1989, chart regulations kept Kylie Minogue's song "Hand on Your Heart" from entering at number one because sales from cassette singles were not included (they were sold for £1.99 – cheaper than allowed at the time). Following this, the BPI reduced the minimum price for cassette singles to influence sales figures. In September 1989, W H Smith began to send sales data to Gallup directly through electronic point of sale (EPoS) terminals.

In January 1990, the BPI gave notice to Gallup, BBC and ''Music Week''; on 30 June 1990, it terminated its contract with them because it "could no longer afford the £600,000 a year cost". From 1 July 1990, the Chart Information Network (CIN) was formed by Spotlight Publications (publisher of ''Music Week''), in cooperation with the BBC and the British Association of Record Dealers (BARD) – representing retailers, including W H Smith, Woolworths, HMV and Virgin – who agreed to exclusively supply sales data to the CIN. A Chart Supervisory Committee (CSC) represented the BBC, CIN and retailers. The BPI were reluctant to join and "consider dthe option of launching a rival chart" but in September, an agreement was reached, and it joined the CSC. For this period, the chart was produced by Gallup and owned by CIN and ''Music Week'' (who would then sell it to the BBC and BPI), with around 900 shops providing the data from point of sale machines (though the data was distilled back down to a sample of 250 stores to provide a consistency with the charts of the early 1980s).

In January 1991, the CIN became a joint venture between Link House Magazines (formerly Spotlight Publications, later Miller Freeman, Inc.) and the BPI; they shared the revenue and costs (reportedly between £750,000 and £1 million). During this time, other retailers (such as Woolworths and John Menzies) began submitting data using EPoS terminals. In late 1991, the sample consisted of 500 stores scanning barcodes of all record sales into an Epson PX-4 computer, and 650 other stores providing sales data through their own EPoS computerised tills. These computers were to be telephoned six times a week, providing the data to Gallup. In June 1991, the BPI reduced the number of eligible formats from five to four.

In November 1990, the "Next 25" section of the UK singles chart (positions 76–100, with special rules) ceased to be printed in the trade magazine Music Week, who decided to focus on records in the charts described as hits. In April 1991, ''Record Mirror'' ceased publication, along with the "Next 25". At this point, Gallup was compiling a Top 200 singles chart and Top 150 albums chart for industry insiders, with the data accessed by subscribing to ''Music Week'''s spin-off newsletter ''Charts Plus''. (Note: As of December 2020, the Official Charts Company website is still missing much of the data on regards to records in positions 76 to 100 from 1991 to 12 February 1994.)

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, 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.

In February 1993, the research contract for the chart was put out to tender, with a new four-year contract beginning 1 February 1994 offered. Millward Brown, Research International

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