Radio presenter Mark Goodier, most famous for hosting Radio 1's Official Top 40 for 11 years, is backing changes to the way the UK singles charts are formulated. The alterations will affect this weekend's chart – and see all track downloads included for the first time ever. It means literally any song could top the countdown, rather than just those on current release.
Writing in The Sun today, the DJ welcomes the changes as "a great move" that he hopes will "put the vibrancy and the magic back into the Top 40."
Mark writes: "Essentially, the charts you tune into on a Sunday evening will be an absolute barometer of exactly what the nation is listening to, not what the record labels have decided to release."
Goodier, who currently hosts a chart show for Classic FM and The Real Top 40 on Real Radio, is also behind the production firm Wise Buddah.
His article in today's Sun says it's great that the changes put the charts back in the hands of the general public rather than music industry executives. "By the late Nineties," he writes, "the record industry had all but killed off the music charts by engineering it to their own ends. They marketed and released records in such a way that they could predict exactly what was going to be in the Top 5. However, the punters got savvy and lost interest. The changes put the charts back in the hands of the punters."
Mark's also sitting in for Chris Evans on Radio 2 this week and regularly fills in for presenters on the station.
To read his article in full, click [link=http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007000567,00.html]here[/link].
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