mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 30, 2021 19:43:26 GMT 1
Nobody? I think there would have many in the industry who had a good idea.
1994 was a few years away at this point. By then singles sales were rising and Music Week had a summary of an expensive tome looking into the future of the music industry. Part of the sales pitch for that was a forecast for the singles market, not that it persuaded me to pay for the book. It said singles sales would continue to rise until 1997 then decline, getting back to 1994 levels in 2000. In the event the total sales forecast were an underestimate, but it was spot on with regard to the 1997 peak.
The main reason behind this prediction? The number of teenagers in the population was rising again, having fallen during the previous 10 years.
For 1990 you can add that a recession was underway and that singles were increasingly less value for money relative to albums, and were being deleted earlier to divert sales to albums.
Not that sales were down that much. There had been an increase in singles sold in 1989 relative to 1988. 1990 saw trade deliveries fall about 3.6% by volume and 2.5% by value according to the BPI. Over-the-counter sales were down only 1.4% according to Gallup. Quarters 2 and 4 showed an increase compared to 1989.
Album sales were up 1% year-on-year compared with 1989, but the recession was having its effect with them. In the first quarter sales had been up more than 15% compared with the same period in 1989.
The comment about artists appearing on other shows makes no sense. TOTP was based on the charts as we have seen week-in week-out since the chart went to a top 75. Who other shows booked was up to them. Kylie Minogue was, of course, signed to PWL at this time, while Big Fun were signed to Jive, an entirely separate record label.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 23:22:50 GMT 1
Given that they lost 10 minutes there were ways to pinch some of it back. One is to count a breaker/playout play as a play, so some records don't get consecutive weeks where others get nothing at all. One is not to waste a minute with the top 5 albums, especially when they overlap with other acts on the show. And an absolute easy win is to go back to what they did in the seventies - do the charts from 40-11 in one fell swoop, scrolling against the background of another record. That would get another song slot. Don't have the DJs wittering away, we can see the charts. Well, there could have been a number of ways. Top 5 albums was a recent idea, occurring once a month. The playout track was often on again the next week because this track was usually cut a lot shorter than we see on BBC4, hence the credits start appearing quite soon over it, so it could faded straight after when required. But you don't seem to notice, they have managed to 'pinch' some time back. 9 or 10 featured acts, plus some breakers is consistent with the 1970s period. Compare it to 1985, in particular, when there were often only 6 featured acts amongst breakers and playing snippets of the top 10 every week. Yet, this isn't really your main beef, because you question the choices apparently made, despite these choices being dictated by the buying public. You make unsubstantiated suggestions of payola, when it is clear the show is based on the chart, with only the requirement to have a certain number of studio acts, averaged over a month or so, and availability of video otherwise limiting this. Who would be paying? Surely not PWL, who were classed as an independent, even eligible for the indie chart while Pinnacle was their distributor? Also, they were not BPI members and determinedly so.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 21:31:20 GMT 1
There are ways and means of doing it though. Note that when there were a load of new indie entries they didn't bother with breakers. Coincidence? Yet Donovan got two full plays outside the top 20. It's payola. They're hiding behind the charts as a crutch. They'll never play a Honey Bane again. They also had 40 minutes per show then. Allowing for no videos below position 30 what did they miss out that week? Breakers were a video slot and they had to have a certain number of studios performances averaged over a month.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 29, 2021 19:22:22 GMT 1
The programme planner is refusing to use any imagination at all, just going down the charts and playing whatever is there.
That was the brief and it hasn't changed.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 23, 2021 20:59:32 GMT 1
Jason Donovan, despite being at 35, gets airplay. Anyone now believe that this show is being picked on the level? After all Morrissey wasn't on despite being 20 places higher. Yes, it is. October 11th - 10 tracks plus no breakers. Lowest was number 25, hence no Rita McNeil, who was at 39. October 18th - 9 tracks plus 3 breakers. Lowest featured track Innocence at number 33. The 3 breakers were all higher but none available for studio. October 25th - 10 tracks plus 2 breakers. Lowest featured track Jason Donovan at number 35. The 2 breakers were higher but neither available for the studio. In that time only Morrissey was higher than the lowest featured track, but presumably the content or video were an issue. None of what is featured is there to prevent something else being on.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Feb 22, 2021 23:33:27 GMT 1
TOTP didn't feature Michael Jackson & Siedah Garrett in either week when they were number 1.
Billboard listed video availability on NKOTB's Tonight before TOTP first showed it. CBS might have done a second version. This sometimes happened. The BBC wouldn't have had concert footage any other way than in something supplied by the record company.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Feb 22, 2021 20:20:43 GMT 1
I think it was Michael Grade, when he was Controller of BBC1, who decided that shows in prime time should be multiples of 30 minutes in length, and so TOTP became a 30 minute show from 1985. That still holds true, except for Saturdays, in the main.
Apart from banned records, and occasional videos deemed to have inappropriate content for early evening, there is very little evidence that anything was purposely ignored. Where someone wasn't available to appear in the studio and there was no video TOTP was given no choice but to leave it out once they had dispensed with the idea of having dancers, e.g. An Innocent Man by Billy Joel in 1984, which was eligible to be included 5 weeks in a row but never was included because there was no video, and no studio appearance forthcoming.
Incidentally, George Michael declined to make a video for Praying For Time, but allowed his record company to make one which consisted only of the lyrics against a single-colour background. TOTP perhaps decided that didn't make good enough TV.
There was no requirement once promo videos were almost always produced to promote singles for the BBC to create one for a reluctant artist or record company. They didn't do it for Billy Joel, or Michael Jackson for that matter, nor therefore for The Stone Roses.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Feb 21, 2021 23:53:23 GMT 1
Firstly, the TOTP producers of the late 1970s and early 1980s (and I totally agree that the music then was far better than what we had by 1990) had 2 big advantages relative to the later years in terms of being able to feature songs outside the top 40.
1. Most shows were 40 minutes long. 2. The slower pace of the chart meant that they could feature every new entry to the top 30 the first week and still have room for other hits, whether second / third appearances, or records outside the top 30.
The norm in the period 1978-1980 when Robin Nash was still Executive Producer was
- 40 minute show, 13 songs studio or video including Legs & Co plus a snippet of something over the chart rundown at the start and another snippet of something over the credits.
- 35 minutes show, 11 songs in studio or video plus charts and credits
- 30 minutes show, 10 songs plus (you get my drift)
The repeats have reinforced that up to May 1978 when the chart was expanded to 75 positions it was hard to tell how far off the chart some featured records were. But once the top 75 commenced it's been clear that they did follow the chart downwards using their own eligibility criteria (i.e. the number 1, climbers that hadn't been on the previous week, a balance of studio and video, but almost never any video below position 30).
Some weeks that allowed them to find something well below position 40, even down to 70 once or twice. Yes, they occasionally stuck on some MOR stuff that wasn't in the chart (maybe that was meant to be educational).
In 1980, when Michael Hurll took over from Robin Nash there was suddenly a lot of sidetracking banter between 2 hosts (when one host had been sufficient before), interviews, chart rundowns read out by a presenter, top 10 video countdowns for a while and fewer records were played than in the years before. 1981 and 1982 weren't too bad. Michael Hurll seemed to prefer playing things in full, including videos, which was fair enough I suppose, but fewer songs were featured even when there weren't unnecessary distractions.
Hurll seemed to not like playing the same thing twice, so there were few repeats of studio performances, and videos only getting shown once. Long-running number ones with no prospect of the act appearing in the studio must have infuriated him. But he was still basically following the chart down. This enabled them to have songs below position 30 and occasionally below 40 (but Wham's debut at position 40 something was an exception even by late 1982)
In 1985 the show went down permanently to 30 minutes, and few tracks were featured below position 25 around this time, especially since the top 10 video rundown was back for a year. Breakers helped get songs that were a bit lower some representation.
Paul Ciani took over as producer in 1988 and by 1989 was cutting videos short at about 2 minutes and studio appearances at about 3 minutes, but still following the charts down. The Augusts 23rd 1990 show had 9 featured songs and 3 breakers. This sort of total is higher than we had had since before the running time had dropped to 30 minutes, hence they are often featuring tracks below position 30, but new entries alone can fill up a show by this point.
I don't see how they could ignore Jive Bunny or anything else that was high in the charts. They just needed to have something to show. I remember John Lydon praising TOTP in 1979 for featuring Death Disco when Radio 1 wasn't playlisting it - but it was in the charts and that was the ethos behind the show. Tampering with that wasn't advisable, people still expected to see what they had bought, at least until they had had enough of it on MTV before TOTP got hold of it.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Feb 21, 2021 20:42:52 GMT 1
But then it wouldn't have been Top Of The Pops. Nor had any producer got the right to tell the record industry what type of songs should be on the show and what shouldn't.
Eventually, producers sometimes didn't follow the charts as closely, putting on acts who had not charted or who might attract non-regular viewers. To do so they often ignored songs that were high in the charts. A few of these songs had the habit of hanging around the chart, even going back up despite the increasing trend of nearly everything peaking in week one, thus almost forcing their way on to the show.
There were other factors involved, but producers stepping outside the formula that had been so successful for a long time contributed to the decline in audience size and ultimately the demise of the show as a weekly broadcast.
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Post by mfr on Feb 19, 2021 23:12:17 GMT 1
According to Billboard there was "video clip availability" for Tonight by New Kids On The Block, so presumably that was it. I think their last video was also concert footage and they may have been constantly on the road at that time, hence not much time to make a "proper" video.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Dec 13, 2020 0:33:15 GMT 1
The producers are definitely to blame for not including breakers when there are loads of new entries. And for having breakers on in consecutive weeks squeezing out songs that therefore do not get a play. E.g.on the 10.5 show they could have had 3-4 songs instead of En Vogue, who couldn't be bothered to come over. Of course, En Vogue might have been on tour in the US, or on a US show, at the time. They are in the studio for the next show. The Breakers slot presumably counted as a video slot, so it may be they were less likely to be included when there were more videos anyway.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Dec 12, 2020 20:14:56 GMT 1
To save you the bother of complaining about the song choices in these 2 weeks and every other week, the chart itself decided the content. All the eligible tracks were featured on the May 10th show, the cutoff being Thunder at number 25. On the May 18th show the lowest featured was Hothouse Flowers at number 31 and presumably Don Pablo's Animals weren't available (they were for the next show).
Blame the public for buying what they bought but don't blame the producers.
By the way, Lisa Stansfield was on the May 18th show, but was apparently edited out for the BBC4 repeat because of a reference to Cyril Smith made by Nicky Campbell, perhaps saying he was her MP. I suppose BBC4 could have found a way to play it anyway.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Nov 24, 2020 20:31:23 GMT 1
When Michael Jackson was number 1 with I Just Can't Stop Loving You TOTP didn't play it in either week because there was no video (and no chance of him being in the studio, and no in-house dancers). I think the only other number 1s not played were due to bans (e.g. Relax).
Stone Roses' TOTP debut with Fool's Gold was just after their appearance on The Late Show.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Nov 23, 2020 20:34:23 GMT 1
Don't worry Vas. They're on twice later in 1990.
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Post by mfr on Nov 22, 2020 22:26:19 GMT 1
They didn't always have time for a breakers slot. Sometimes better to have one song on in full. Breakers often amounted to only 30 to 45 seconds of play in any case. Then Emma took that slot on April 5th. I think Top of the Pops was obliged to show our Eurovision entry in those days, if only to publicise their broadcast of the contest itself.
A bit drastic to close a station down for not showing one act on one show. How on earth would that act ever get on the show again if that had happened? Anyway, record companies would by this point and earlier fall over each other trying to get videos - or live footage - onto such a popular show in the absence of a studio appearance. If nothing was available TOTP would just move on to whoever was next on the list.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Nov 22, 2020 20:29:36 GMT 1
To be honest I don't understand the dislike of the choices of what gets included in the show.
To my mind nothing seems to have changed since the top 75 started in 1978 (at least). Sure, there are pluggers trying to jump the queue for their acts but not many seem to get listened to.
Nine times out of ten, possibly more, if you go down the chart from number 2 onwards, look at what has climbed, strike out what was on last week - breakers don't count as last week - if there are 8 further slots the 8 highest eligible tracks are on. The need to balance out studio and video ratios had some affect.
If the act can't make the studio and there is no video, then the record is not going to be on in the absence of a dance troupe. By this time, if the record company hadn't made a video the BBC wasn't go to commission one for them.
This is probably why Stone Roses weren't on. Nor was the remix for Ram Jam's Black Betty, for which there was a video for the original version in 1977, but it presumably didn't match the remix and there was no point playing the original version because that wasn't what was being promoted.
As for the playout track being on the next week. We are privileged to see most of the video now, but on the original broadcast the show was often cut straight after the credits ended, and they were usually on early in the piece, so that it could be cut off for trailers and continuity. This presumably influenced whether the track was eligible the next week, upward chart movement permitting.
My musical opinion is that the actual records featured are generally not a patch on what was in the charts a decade earlier, when producer Robin Nash usually had 40 minutes to use.
The next producer, Michael Hurll didn't make such good use of that time, in my opinion, with too much chat and top 10 video countdowns in some years. He seemed also averse to showing anything twice unless he had to, and very rarely strayed below position 30 (or even 25) eventually and the show had been cut permanently to 30 minutes in 1985.
Despite the music being less appealing, to my ears, by this point, I see some elements of the way the show was in Robin Nash's later years (1978 to 1980 specifically) in Paul Ciani's shows. It's very sad he didn't survive much longer and the show took a downturn under Stanley Appel's stewardship, again in my opinion, although he had done of lot of good work producing with all of the three previous Executive Producers.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Jan 29, 2017 19:42:58 GMT 1
It looks like the February 3rd show was originally scheduled to be only 30 minutes long, so the lengthy top 10 video play part was presumably included because they didn't have time to get anyone else to the studio when they suddenly gained an extra 10 minutes.
Fleetwood Mac's performance on The Late Late Breakfast Show was apparently on November 13th, so not much use in chart terms by late January / early February.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Jun 26, 2016 16:58:26 GMT 1
Didn't it happen with This Year's Blonde (October 15th and 22nd)? There may well be others, perhaps before the Musician's Union strike with a playout over the credits followed by a play over the chart rundown the next week, or maybe that doesn't count.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 13, 2016 20:30:50 GMT 1
As hardly anyone is interested, and I didn't want this to be a slanging match, my final comment on this subject will be this -
I could accept that you sincerely believe that The Real Chart is as real as the name suggests. But a person with that information should be well aware of the advantages that this chart would have over the official charts in terms of reach and accuracy, and wouldn't waste time casting aspersions on the honest endeavours of 99.9% of those people who have been involved in the official charts and their content over many years.
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mfr
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Post by mfr on Mar 12, 2016 20:55:18 GMT 1
I read the explanation of your chart years ago after you started posting on UKMix. Having had another look now it makes no more sense now than it did then. The official data from BMRB, Gallup, OCC, BPI, record companies etc does. As we are on the TOTP page I can say the BBC for years defended Jimmy Saville, despite the fact that there was evidence to the contrary. So you are just as bad as the BBC, you ignore the obvious. It doesn't matter what you think of the Real Chart, just look at the evidence. And stop yourself being an arrogant know it all. There's a World In Action from 1980 on Youtube clearly showing that Record Companies were fiddling the charts big time. And yet you still believe the data. Ask yourself this, why are not the BMRB still doing the charts, then why are not Gallup still not doing the charts? Why do the OCC change the charts? Something you yourself are having a discussion on with others on another site. Plus get impartial data too, not something put out by Record Companies and the Music Industry. Let's face it, if the Real Chart figures are right, then we are talking about corruption on a grand scale. So you don't go to the people who are corrupt to get the information. Well if your a BBC reporter you do. When investigating the Saville case they went to Max Clifford! Where is he now? I'll tell you one thing if you do find something wrong with the OCC charts and it's current sales figures, as one of my contacts did and tell them about it, in a very friendly way. Not like I might have done! Then the result you would get back from is this: "YOU ARE WRONG, OUR FIGURES ARE RIGHT - PLUS WE DON'T DEAL WITH MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC!" The figures, sometime later, he informed me where changed to the one's he had done.
As for some of the people on this thread, well they must be blind! I have posted the link several times on this thread to the Real Chart site, with the message about seeing what the chart really looks like after a TOTP show, so to ask where the information is coming from is silly.
Where to start? Your page doesn't tell me where the Real Chart information comes from. It tells me this chart existed before you were born but nothing about where in the public domain it could be found by anyone independently of you. The BMRB lost the chart contract because Gallup offered something better. Same applied when Gallup late lost the contract. Gallup were arguably put in a difficult position when the BPI cancelled their contract in 1990 in order to replace it with a smaller panel, only for OCC to be created to take the choice out of the BPI's hands and keep Gallup, and then get rid of them 3 years later because they hadn't expanded the panel massively beyond what it was clear the BPI had wanted. OCC have changed very few chart placings. It may come down to the different methods of reporting sales. We went through this on UKMix some years ago where you said Bryan Adams never got to no. 1 in 1991 despite selling 4.3 million or something of (Everything I Do) I Do It For You and that in 1992 a Madonna track got to no. 1 as an import, but even the Madonna fans had never heard of it. That's why I don't believe.
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