UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart, full name the Official Singles Chart, is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record industry. The full chart contains the weekly top-selling 200 single recordings in the United Kingdom, based upon combined record sales and download numbers. However, some media outlets only list the Top 40 (such as the BBC) or the Top 75 (such as Music Week magazine) of this list. Around 6,500 British retail outlets contribute sales data, as well as most UK online digital-download stores. Unlike charts in the United States, no airplay statistics are used for the official UK Singles Chart. The chart week runs from 00:01 Sunday to midnight Saturday, with most UK digital singles being released on Sundays (followed by CD releases on Monday).

The Top 40 chart is first released on Sunday afternoons by BBC Radio 1 before the full Official Singles Chart Top 100 is posted on the Official Charts Company's website, with the top 75 being printed in Music Week magazine the following Monday and the top 200 appearing in the independent newsletter UKChartsPlus on Wednesdays. It is also published online. Radio 1 broadcasts a Top 40 countdown on Sundays from 16:00 to 19:00. The show had various presenters over the years, including Tommy Vance, Mark Goodier, Bruno Brookes and Alan Freeman whose Pick Of The Pops was the chart show from the 1960s into the early 1970s. Since October 2007, Reggie Yates has presented the chart show (until September 2009 with Fearne Cotton). Cotton was the first permanent female presenter of the Official Chart Show. A rival chart show, The Big Top 40 Show, is based on downloads and commercial radio airplay and is broadcast on 140 commercial local radio stations. According to the Official Charts Company, the official British singles chart was the New Musical Express chart from 1952 to 1960, the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969 and the Official UK Singles Chart since 1969.

According to the Official Charts Company's statistics, as of 1 July 2012 1,200 singles have topped the UK singles chart. The precise number of chart-toppers is debatable due to the profusion of competing charts from the 1950s to the 1980s, but the usual list used is that endorsed by the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and subsequently adopted by the Official UK Charts Company. There was no "official" chart before Tuesday, 11 February 1969. Prior to this the BBC compiled its own chart based on an average of the music papers of the time; many songs announced as having reached number one on BBC Radio and Top of the Pops prior to 1969 are not listed as chart-toppers according to the above criteria.