Why Did Radio 1 Ignore One Of The Biggests Chart Hits Of 2012

Pick of the Pops, as the chart was originally known, transferred to Radio One from the BBC Light Programme in October 1967, along with host Alan Freeman. Tom Browne took over in 1972 with Solid Gold Sixty. This consisted of two hours featuring Radio One playlist tracks which were not in the Top 20 (broadcast on 247 metres Medium Wave and carried on VHF by some location BBC radio stations), followed by a one-hour Top 20 rundown from 6pm - 7pm (carried also on BBC Radio 2's FM transmitters). Starting from March 1974,[3] the playlist tracks were incorporated into Paul Burnett's 'All There Is To Hear', and the Tom Browne show was reduced to just the Top 20 for one hour at 18:00.

The OCC website contains the Top 100 chart.[5] 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.[6]

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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.

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 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.

On 10 March 2017, Ed Sheeran claimed 9 of the top 10 positions in the chart when his album Ã was released.[110] The large number of tracks from the album on the singles chart, 16 in the top 20, led to a change in how the chart is compiled with tracks from a lead artist eligible for entry limited to three.[111] Also the idea of Standard Chart Ratios (SCR) and Accelerated Chart Ratios (ACR) were introduced, with ACR halving streaming points for records that have been in the charts for a while (which includes most catalogue tracks, excepting certain cases),[112] the effect being that a number of hits have plummeted out of the top ten with drops of around 20 places one week only to level off again the next. Due to these factors, on 20 July 2018, "3 Lions" by The Lightning Seeds, Frank Skinner, and David Baddiel beat the Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Choir record for number one chart fall and got the Guinness World Records' award for "largest chart drop from number one on the UK singles chart" by going from number one to number 97.[113][114]

In June 2022, the Netflix show Stranger Things[130] used "Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush in their fourth season, which resulted in the record (which had previously charted in 1985 via EMI and in 2012 via Kate Bush's Fish People record label) re-enter the charts at number 8.[131] On the Official Singles Chart Top 100 of 10 June 2022 to 16 June 2022, the record climbed to number two,[132] even though it was revealed to be the most popular track of the week in the United Kingdom[133] and even though all versions (regardless of it being an album track, live version or remix)[134] now counted to its chart position. Sales for the week had the number one record, Harry Styles' "As It Was", on a SCR total of 55,768 sales, compared to Kate Bush's number two on an ACR sales total of 44,739.[135] Encumbered with ACR, a rule introduced in 2017 to push down a number of long-running 'recent' hits but applied to all catalogue recordings over three years old, saw all totals for Bush's streaming data halved, so that she got one sale for every 200 plays from her 7,470,792 premium audio stream total and one sale from every 1,200 plays of her 1,029,666 ad-funded audio stream total.[136] Added to premium video streams and digital downloads she ended up with the total of 44,739 sales rather than the 83,613 she would have done with a SCR listing. On 14 June 2022,[137] it was revealed that the Chart Supervisory Committee (CSC) had given the record an exemption from the ACR accelerated decline rule, with the record now on a SCR listing, giving Kate Bush the chance to get another number one, more than 44 years after "Wuthering Heights" and the first number one for her own record label, Fish People (as EMI-Universal are no longer the rights holders).[138]

The BBC aired Pick of the Pops on its Light Programme radio station on 4 October 1955.[10] Initially airing popular songs, it developed an aggregated chart in March 1958. Using the NME, Melody Maker, Disc and Record Mirror charts, the BBC averaged them by totalling points gained on the four charts (one point for a number one, two for a number two, etc.) to give a chart average; however, this method was prone to tied positions.[10] Record Retailer was included in the average on 31 March 1962, after Record Mirror ceased compiling its chart.[10] David Jacobs and Alan Freeman both had stints presenting the Pick of the Pops chart.[148] Freeman took Pick of the Pops to its regular Sunday afternoon slot in early 1962.[149] Freeman (along with Pete Murray, David Jacobs and Jimmy Savile) was one of the four original presenters on Top of the Pops, which first aired 1 January 1964 on BBC One (then known as BBC TV).[148][150] Top of the Pops, like Pick of the Pops, used a combination of predominant periodicals until the formation of the BMRB chart in 1969.[10]

In 1990, Brookes was replaced as presenter by Mark Goodier, but returned 18 months later. Goodier took over from Brookes once more in 1995 and continued presenting the show until 2002.[157] In February 2003 Wes Butters hosted the chart show; two years later his contract was not renewed, and he was replaced by JK and Joel.[153][158] The duo were made redundant by Radio 1 in September 2007; Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates replaced them at the helm of the chart show.[159] Cotton left in September 2009, and until 2012 the chart show was hosted by Yates.[160] Yates left Radio 1 at the end of 2012, because he wanted to spend more time with his family, as well as focusing more on television. Jameela Jamil took over from him in January 2013, becoming the first woman to host, alone, the BBC Chart show[161] before being replaced by Clara Amfo. On 10 July 2015, Greg James took over from Amfo, when the new chart announcement was moved to Friday afternoons,[162] with Scott Mills[163] being the regular presenter of the chart as of 2022[164] (with Mills taking over from James[165] on 15 June 2018).[166]

From March 2010 Greg James hosted a half-hour show at 3:30 pm on Wednesdays, announcing a chart update based on midweek sales figures previously only available to the industry. The managing director of the Official Charts Company, Martin Talbot, said in a statement that it would provide "insight into how the race for number one is shaping up".[167] Scott Mills became the host of the Chart Update from April 2012, due to schedule changes which saw Mills host what was Greg's early afternoon show.[168] When the chart moved to Fridays in July 2015, the chart update moved to 5:30 pm on Mondays.[169] The show was then once again hosted by Greg James and the top ten songs are quickly overviewed with the top three being played in full before Newsbeat at 5:45pm. It was presented by Nick Grimshaw due to his swap of times with Greg James. In 2019 it was moved to a new time of Sunday evenings between 6 pm and 7 pm presented by Cel Spellman and Katie Thistleton replacing the Radio 1 Most Played Chart. The top twenty is overviewed with around fifteen songs being played in full, including the top ten.

Since February 2016, the Official Charts Company have published the Official Trending Chart. Published every Tuesday morning (a day after the full midweek chart comes out at 5:45pm) the chart is based on the first three sales days of each week, highlights new and future hits (those tracks not officially in the Top 10), and works in conjunction with a playlist found on Spotify, Deezer and via Apple Music.[170][171][172][173]

With no official chart before 1969, a number of periodicals compiled their own charts during the 1950s and 1960s. Pirate radio stations such as Radio London and Radio Caroline also broadcast their own charts.[176] The five main charts (as used by BBC's Pick of the Pops) were:

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