Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: The Comparison Book 1954-82

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EdisonLite
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Posted: 11 September 2015 at 8:16pm \| IP Logged

I was speaking with a friend about the wildly different chart peaks between BB, CB & RW, as revealed in the Comparison book, which I just got this week. But that made us wonder ... in the '70s/'80s, was there ever a time when CB or RW based their charts solely on sales OR airplay, and not both? If so, that could explain such differences in chart peaks. I looked in the intro paragraphs of the RR Cashbox & Record World books and did not find anything that said whether only sales or only airplay were considered.

Edited by EdisonLite on 11 September 2015 at 8:17pm

musicmanatl
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Posted: 11 September 2015 at 8:57pm \| IP Logged

I'm getting ready to read in bed as I do each night, and the only book I've read at night this year has been the comparison book. I've read it cover to cover twice and I'm working on a third time through. Paul, thanks so much for this! I find interesting new facts each time I read it.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 12 September 2015 at 2:20pm \| IP Logged

musicmanatl wrote:

Thanks for the kind words, Frank!

I think that's also my favorite RR book. Everybody should own at least one copy!

Paul Haney
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Posted: 12 September 2015 at 2:26pm \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

Gordon, I'm pretty sure that by the '70s/'80s all three trades were some combination of sales and airplay. We were never able to really nail down the exact methodology used by CB and RW over the years. There's a lot of differences between the three, but there's also a lot that are the same or at least fairly close.

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 13 September 2015 at 8:13am \| IP Logged

To EdisonLite, et al:

Sometimes people forget how chart methodology can work.

Even if the trades had the same method of compiling the chart (they didn't), the three trades never even had the exact same reporters at the same time!

I seem to recall times where a few radio stations were dropped from reporting status from a couple of trades, but kept on as a reporter at one of the trades. The promotion department (or indies) would hard sell their record to these stations to attempt to goose up the chart position in that particular trade. This was done because the dropped stations would feel vulnerable & afraid of losing their industry relevance.

I also remember Radio & Records Magazine becoming the premier trade mag because of their 3-Parallel tier system and the fact that they would drop or add stations to reporting status based on their Arbitron ratings more swiftly than the other three trades. This would (in theory) result in a more meaningful chart to programmers (fewer lame stations clouding the chart positions).

Can anyone out there add to this?

Andy

EdisonLite
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Posted: 13 September 2015 at 12:42pm \| IP Logged

Andy, what is a 3-parallel tier system? (I'm guessing 2 of the 3 are radio & records (?) - are you talking about earlier days when jukeboxes might have made up the 3rd tier?)

Hykker
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Posted: 13 September 2015 at 3:31pm \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

Andy, what is a 3-parallel tier system?
(I'm guessing 2 of the 3 are radio & records (?) - are you
talking about earlier days when jukeboxes might have made
up
the 3rd tier?)

I'm not Andy, but the "parallels" refer to 3 tiers of
reporting radio stations. Obviously, a station in Minot,
N.
Dak. isn't going to have the influence of one in L.A. or
Chicago. Stations were ranked by market size (and maybe
other factors too), so that spins on major market stations
were
weighted more heavily than medium or smaller ones.

Edited by Hykker on 13 September 2015 at 3:32pm

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 14 September 2015 at 7:38am \| IP Logged

Thank you Hykker for accurately answering EdisonLite's question for me while I was off-duty!!

Andy

Brian W.
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Posted: 14 September 2015 at 2:57pm \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

I was speaking with a friend about
the wildly different chart peaks between BB, CB & RW, as
revealed in the Comparison book, which I just got this
week. But that made us wonder ... in the '70s/'80s, was
there ever a time when CB or RW based their charts solely
on sales OR airplay, and not both? If so, that could
explain such differences in chart peaks. I looked in the
intro paragraphs of the RR Cashbox & Record World books
and did not find anything that said whether only sales or
only airplay were considered.

Cash Box was sales-only until at least early 1968... it
said so in a notation on on each chart until that time.
The year-end issues continued to call it "The Cash Box
Top 100 Best Selling Singles" chart through the 1973 year
end chart.

But differences in chart peaks are also due to each
week's chart simply being the result of a phone poll, a
survey. Just like a survey of who is ahead in the
presidential race, the results vary slightly from the
different news organizations. And can be dead wrong...
I'm sure we call all recall exit polls that were dead
wrong. It's all rather imprecise, but it's the same
methodology used to gather chart information prior to
soundscan. Imagine how much those political polls would
vary if there were 100 candidates instead of just a few.

Edited by Brian W. on 14 September 2015 at 3:01pm

EdisonLite
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Posted: 29 November 2020 at 3:09am \| IP Logged

I finally had a chance to really go through this cool book tonight. A question about the 4 sources compared:

Billboard
Cashbox
Record World
Radio & Records

-Isn't Radio & Records the only one that's a radio-only chart, while the other 3 are a combo of sales & airplay?

(If so, it's a bit like comparing 3 apples & 1 orange. But it's fun seeing those R&R peaks. Sometimes they're much higher than the other 3 charts, and I wonder if it's because it's airplay-only - or if it would have peaked a lot higher anyway.)

Paul Haney
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Posted: 29 November 2020 at 5:02am \| IP Logged

I think you're actually referring to The Whitburn Book of Top 10 hits (the Comparison Book had no R&R data).

Yes, the R&R charts were based strictly on airplay. Many songs (especially from the early 1980s) peaked much
higher, in part due to Billboard's chart policies at the time (which I think have been covered elsewhere on this
board).

thecdguy
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Posted: 29 November 2020 at 5:08am \| IP Logged

EdisonLite wrote:

-Isn't Radio & Records the only one that's a radio-only chart, while the other 3 are a combo of sales & airplay?

I thought "Record World" was based entirely on Sales. I do remember reading somewhere several years ago that "Cashbox" was also all Sales until sometime in the late 70's when they began incorporating Airplay into their rankings, but I don't know if that's true or not.

__________________
Dan In Philly

Paul Haney
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Posted: 29 November 2020 at 10:07am \| IP Logged

thecdguy wrote:

I thought "Record World" was based
entirely on Sales. I do remember reading somewhere several
years ago that "Cashbox" was also all Sales until sometime
in the late 70's when they began incorporating Airplay
into their rankings, but I don't know if that's true or
not.

All 3 of the "major" trades (Billboard, Cash Box & Record World) were based on a combination of sales & airplay, at least
by the 1970s. The formulas changed over the years, but they seemed to be pretty balanced. IIRC, Variety actually had a
sales-only chart during that time period.

Edited by Paul Haney on 29 November 2020 at 10:09am

Brian W.
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Posted: 29 November 2020 at 12:05pm \| IP Logged

thecdguy wrote:

EdisonLite wrote:

-Isn't Radio & Records the only one that's a radio-only chart, while the other 3 are a combo of sales & airplay?

"Record World" always had an airplay component.

"Cash Box" actually said on their charts that they were compiled from only retail sales until early 1968, but the year-end charts continued to call it the "Cash Box Top 100 Bestselling Singles Chart" up through the 1973 or 1974 year-end issue. Cash Box began notating which songs were the greatest airplay gainers sometime in the late '70s. So it's kind of a mystery as to exactly when they started incorporating airplay.

For an unknown period of time starting with the May 5, 1968 issue, the top 50 of the Billboard Hot 100 was strictly sales-based, because Billboard felt radio stations were limiting their playlists. No one knows when that policy stopped, either, but it had definitely stopped by June 3, 1973.

There's an old thread discussing that here:

http://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7105 &KW=billboard+sales%2Dbased

Edited by Brian W. on 29 November 2020 at 12:06pm

bitman
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Posted: 25 December 2020 at 7:05pm \| IP Logged

Any chance of releasing this book digitally?

Paul Haney
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Posted: 26 December 2020 at 4:39am \| IP Logged

bitman wrote:

Any chance of releasing this book digitally?

There's ALWAYS a chance. However, not a very big one at the moment. The digital versions just don't sell like the
print books do.

kingofskiffle
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Posted: 26 December 2020 at 8:17am \| IP Logged

Paul Haney wrote:

bitman wrote:

Any chance of releasing this book
digitally?

There's ALWAYS a chance. However, not a very big one at the moment. The
digital versions just don't sell like the
print books do.

I understand why. I love the feel of a book in my hands. However, with the
sheer size of some of the more larger books (Top Pop Albums 1955-2016 for
example) I can imagine having a digital version makes it easier to find things
and read through. However, the Comparison one is not that large in terms of
page count so doesn't fall into that category.

Scanner
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Posted: 26 December 2020 at 4:43pm \| IP Logged

I agree about the larger books - they are becoming too
awkward to handle. Has Record Research considered
dividing the larger books like Top Pop Albums and
Singles into two volumes each to make them easier to
read and reference? I appreciate there would be a cost
increase publishing two books instead of one, but the
size of the Pop books have clearly maxed out.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 27 December 2020 at 5:31am \| IP Logged

As far as 2 volumes of Top Pop Singles goes, all I can say is...STAY TUNED!

Scanner
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Posted: 27 December 2020 at 4:32pm \| IP Logged

That's great news, Paul...I hope! I have actually been
hesitant to update either book because they have become
so cumbersome!

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