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Commercial radio chart show may move, but TOTP not coming back
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 22 April 2015
Now, you might think that Radio 1 confirming it will move its chart show from Sundays to Fridays to tie in with the new global release day meant we’d now fully dealt with the impact records coming out on Fridays will have on British chartdom.
But you’re forgetting that nearly twice as many people tune in to commercial radio’s ‘Big Top 40’ show on a Sunday teatime than Radio 1’s countdown of what we, in this here music industry, like to call the ‘official’ chart. The ‘Big Top 40’ crunches stats from a number of sources – more than the official Top 40 – but downloads and streams are still an important part of the mix, so new releases coming out on a Friday rather than a Monday from later this year is relevant for the commercial radio chart too.
Asked about this at the Student Radio Conference this week, the top bloke at Global Radio, which makes the ‘Big Top 40’, Ashley Tabor, wouldn’t be drawn on his plans, though basically admitted a shift is being considered. According to Radio Today, when asked whether he’d move the Big Top 40 to Fridays, the Global chief said: “I don’t know yet, we haven’t decided”.
Meanwhile the BBC has denied rumours in the Mirror last weekend that a relaunch of ‘Top Of The Pops’ is being plotted to tie in with the new chart day. A spokesman for the Beeb told Music Week there were “no current plans” to bring the one-time flagship pop show back. Which is good news. The rumours had it Fearne Cotton would return as frontwoman, despite her making the show entirely unwatchable during its decline into oblivion.
