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UK To Get Music Download Chart

Posted by timothy on from the bbc-one-bbc-two-bbc-three dept.

theOtherFool writes "The Observer reported today that BBC Radio One is to broadcast a chart of legally downloaded music. This is a big deal because the station is the broadcaster of pop music for our sceptered isle; it legitimises downloading and seems to show that the industry (or at least the BPI, our equivalent of the RIAA) is starting to accept it, rather than ignoring it and hoping it might go away."

9 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Industry already accepts it... by Dozix007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Radio stations in the U.S. have long used statistics from ("illegal") P2P downloading services to influence what they play. Some have admitted it publicly. I think the industry is far more in bed with the "illegal" downloading services then they, or the RIAA would like to admit.

    1. Re:Industry already accepts it... by VertigoAce · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you read the article, you'll notice that the chart is based on paid downloads (ie iTunes). They are not using P2P network stats. This is just as vulnerable to astroturfing as retail sales charts are.

  2. They can start right here.. by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They can start their list of legally downloadable music right here. I suggest you support the freedom of music!

    Check out Sharing the Groove as well for BitTorrent downloads of Spring tours!

  3. The big question is.... by fozzmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...why are they not making a chart of legal FREE downloads? The BBC _should_ have no comercial intrest in labels at all, and they should have no influence over it because it's funded by the british public. Radio 1(& 2 for older people) have a huge percentage of the listeners here (almost certainly way over 50%, infact pretty much everything non-BBC is local/regional radio).

    If they did this and were still broadcasting quality it could be amazing.

    1. Re:The big question is.... by KombuchaGuy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      BBC Radio 1 is shocking in terms of commercial interests. They give heavy control of their rap and hip-hop output to the DJ Tim Westwood who has a contract with Def Jam records and shows very clear bias towards their artists see here for a random recent one worth noting Roc-A-Fella and Def Jam are one and the same.

      --
      sig free since 1993
  4. Why doesn't Clear Channel play unsigned artists? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's one way to think about a mega-company...

    Clear Channel owns tons of radio stations. Clear Channel also operates a concert promotion arm as well. Concert singers don't exactly need album sales as much as they need radio play...

    So maybe CC should get into the business of finding artists and signing them to a concert deal before they even have a recording deal. Give them a couple recording sessions to create a few radio-ready singles... and off they go. CC can make money with no need for the CD to be in wide release. In fact, give the MP3s away... it just serves to promote the artist's concerts.

  5. Boy... by elFarto+the+2nd · · Score: 5, Funny

    British Phonographic Society

    Boy did I read that wrong the first time.

    Regards
    elFarto
  6. Great by Xargle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So it'll now be even cheaper and easier for record promoters to bulk buy singles to up their chart positions like they regularly do with existing formats.

  7. Downloads by gilesjuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They wanted illegal downloads to go away. I don't the industry wants to kill off downloads in general. It actually saves them money since it's on demand sales, they don't have to try and guess how many copies to produce and have stocks sitting around on shelves.

    What they really wanted though was to invent all the technology themselves and release it with a big "wow", trouble is others got there first and it looks like they are just jumping on the bandwagon.