In association with MusicWeek


industry on a weekly basis, other than the Official Charts,” says Talbot. “It is the weekly race which, if you’ve won, you can say puts you ahead of your peers and claims you a place in the history books. Lots of artists don’t like talking about the number of units they’ve sold, but getting a record to Number 1 in the Official Singles Chart is still really important to them and the definitive benchmark of success.” After Top Of The Pops fell by


the wayside in 2006, the Official Charts Company - alongside the entire record business - lost a major ally in the mission to get UK families talking about new music, and had to react accordingly. Although it’s rebuilt that conversation with music fans through new digital avenues, the firm still holds enviable official partnerships with giant media entities - including MTV and, of course, Radio 1. “Top Of The Pops used to pipe news about the chart into people’s homes for decades and when it was axed by the BBC - at a slightly strange time, when singles sales had actually started to rebound again - that channel was taken away,” says Talbot. “We’ve been working to


replace that by engaging with people directly who are buying the music and we’ve seen some real success - but our partners are still hugely important. “We work very closely with our


friends at BBC Radio 1 - Ben Cooper, George Ergatoudis, Neil Sloan and Jocelin Stainer - and the importance of the Official Singles Chart means a lot to both of us. “We work increasingly closely:


they’ve been massively supportive of the Official Number 1 Award this year, for instance. It’s a great relationship to have.


which put the Official Top 40 Singles chart into the pockets of Samsung smartphone buyers. The app comes pre-loaded


onto devices and delivers unlimited plays of all the tracks in the latest weekly Official Chart. It downloads and caches tracks to handsets overnight, meaning no buffering or adverts - just direct access to the latest most popular hits. After a trial period, users are asked for just £1 a week. Meanwhile in May, the firm


pulled back the curtain on an historic moment - the


“And Virginia Monaghan and


Jeremy Davies at MTV have turned their channel into the televised home of the Official Chart. They do a fantastic job and they reach a massive audience themselves every week.” Other innovations from the Official Charts Company in its anniversary year have genuinely been on the cutting edge of music consumption. In July, with support from software company MusicQubed, it launched an app


announcement of an Official Streaming Chart, representing the Top 100 songs played on services such as Spotify, Deezer, Napster and Zune each week. “The future of music consumption is always the big imponderable question,” says Talbot. “The Official Singles Chart has always evolved as consumption and tastes change - just as we did when digital singles took off with iTunes back in 2004. “When the singles chart was first launched, it was ‘78s and a little bit of 7” vinyl. We’ve been through cassettes, CDs and


TRADE IN FULL


While the Official Charts Company certainly does what it says on the tin in terms of its most high profile, consumer- and media-facing role, anyone who works in the music industry will know another side to the business. The company’s trade-


facing work as a data organisation is vital to the entertainment industry, both the music and video sectors. “It is true that we are best known for creating lists and ranking data, but just as important is all this incredibly granular data we create for retailers, labels, publishers, artist/celebrity management companies, ad agencies, management consultants, legal firms, VCs and investment firms and many more,” says Martin Talbot. “Being a data company is absolutely our bread and butter.” The depth of information


downloads - the digital stream is likely to be the next iteration in the life cycle of the single.” The streaming chart’s


introduction begs a predictable question: with more and more kids listening to online content, when will the prestigious Official Singles Chart open up its parameters to Spotify et al? “When the point arises when


we (and the industry as a whole) feels it is appropriate,” says Talbot. “We’re already looking into the mechanics of it - even though we don’t feel we are in the right moment to introduce it just yet. And, of course, there will be something after streaming which we haven’t yet conceived; goodness knows what, but we’ll be here and ready to react.”


available at the fingertips of its trade partners is truly immense, underlined by the announcement earlier this year that its database (which is managed by Bob Barnes’ Millward Brown team in Warwick) had passed a new landmark – holding data on 10 billion transactions, dating back to April 1994.


This data, added to


every week via the feeds from 6,500 retailers, bricks & mortar, digital, streaming and mail order, allows clients to examine the performance of their products day by day, region by region, across different retailer types, as well as many other slices – accessible via the premium Official Charts Online service, the Official Charts Topline dashboard, along with bespoke reports and data feeds.


These data services are


managed by Omar Maskatiya’s operations team, with Giles Jones managing sales into the video and music industries.


www.officialcharts.com 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32