The Official Vodafone Big Top 40

The Official Vodafone Big Top 40 is a radio chart show hosted by Marvin Humes and Kat Shoob. It is broadcast on 140 radio stations in the UK with an audience each week of 2.5 million listeners. It is the single biggest radio programme on UK commercial radio, and around twice the size of its competitor. The chart has no affiliation with the Official Charts Company as it is based on commercial radio airplay and music download figures provided by Apple Music and iTunes. It does not measure the entire UK singles market each week across all retailers and digital services as the BBC Radio 1 Official Chart does. The chart is a combination of weekly iTunes sales data, Apple Music and other streaming sources, alongside the biggest tracks played on the radio stations that broadcast the show. It is the only UK chart to include airplay in its algorithm, much like Billboard in the United States.^[1][2]

Format

The Big Top 40 Show was launched following the demise of Hit40UK,^[3] and is produced by Global, broadcast from studios in Leicester Square in London. It claimed to be the first real-time chart ever to be broadcast in the United Kingdom and broadcasts on over 100 commercial radio stations across the country. Listeners can change the top 10 even during the show, which is revealed after 6:10pm. In October 2017, the show reverted to a more traditional style of running down the 40 biggest tunes of the week rather than taking into account real-time iTunes sales for the Top 10.^[4]

The first show was broadcast on Sunday 14 June 2009.^[5] The first no.1 song was "When Love Takes Over" with David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. It topped again the following week.

The show was originally presented by Capital Radio DJs Rich Clarke and Kat Shoob,^[6] with Heart presenter Matt Wilkinson deputising for both Clarke and Shoob. The show is carried via the IRN satelitte feed, on the stereo channel, and features the Capital voice over Howard Ritchie and the female Heart voiceover, who announce the chart position for each of the songs broadcast, along with the presenter's name. Howard also voices each of the split identifiers, which are triggered by the Big Top 40 team during the show, and play out on the majority of client stations and announce the station name.^[7] Clarke presented his final show on 29 December 2013, with former JLS member and now LuvBug frontman Marvin Humes joining the show from 5 January 2014^[8] with The Bassman deputising for Marvin and Kat.

The chart

The chart is a combination of weekly iTunes sales data, Apple Music and other streaming sources, alongside the biggest tracks played on the radio stations that take the chart. It’s the only UK chart to include airplay in its algorithm, much like Billboard in the USA. The unique algorithm is designed to ensure it reflects the most popular songs, which has resulted in the show having an audience of 2.5 million listeners across the UK every Sunday. The chart is based on music download and streaming data provided by iTunes, Apple Music and airplay data from the commercial radio stations on which the show is broadcast.^[1] The show starts at exactly 4:02pm (to allow stations who carry IRN/Sky News bulletins on the hour to do so) with a recapitulation of the previous week's top five songs. This is followed by a countdown of numbers 40 to 1, compiled again by iTunes downloads and Apple Music streams from the previous seven days, but also includes music streaming and airplay on the stations which carry the show. A recap of the climb/fall is broadcast after every 10 songs. Competition announcements, live calls from contestants, interviews with the artists making that particular week's chart, and advertisements make up the remaining airtime. The show finishes at exactly 6:59pm, again, so that stations who take the 7 o'clock IRN bulletin can do so.

Unlike the chart compiled by the Official Charts Company, it does not take into account other purchase methods such as CD singles or Amazon MP3 or streams from the majority of the streaming market that take place via outlets such as Deezer, Google Play, Tidal and more. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV, instead captures physical sales, digital downloads, and streams across more than 15,000 outlets daily; it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind capturing data on 99.9%^[9] of all singles consumed in the UK each week, and 98% of all albums. It is therefore subscribed to by the British music industry and wider media as the UK's official weekly measure of recorded music popularity.

The song holding the record for most weeks at No.1 is "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber with 11 weeks.^[10]

Only one song has held the top position for 9 weeks without being knocked off, which is "These Days" by Rudimental, Jess Glynne, Macklemore and Dan Caplen (4 February - 1 April 2018).^[11]

2016 network failure

On 8 May 2016, a technical problem at Arqiva's satellite communication centre caused the IRN satellite feed, which would usually connect to Leicester Square just before 1600, to fail to do so and it stayed connected to Wireless Group's Signal 1 FM, following the end of the networked afternoon show. The feed went quiet, and the silence continued for about 13 minutes into the show. A Signal 1 producer provided the network with a 30-minute feed of songs before the chart returned at about 1645. A similar incident occurred on 11 June 2017, but this was restored by about 1610.

Stations by location

Some stations may be stated more than once, due to the location and coverage area.

^[12]

Withdrawn from syndication

On 19 September 2018, Bauer confirmed that their Hits Radio Network would drop the Big Top 40 coinciding with the expiration of its contract at the end of 2018. A spokesperson for the company said their move will allow for "more competition" on a Sunday afternoon.

This led to Global making the decision to discontinue the show all together for the wider network, outside of their own Heart & Capital networks, which will continue to run a revamped version of the show.

The final show across the full commercial radio network will air on 30 December 2018.

References

External links

• Big Top 40