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The Official UK Charts Company has named April 17 as the publication date for the first combined physical and digital singles chart.
The long-anticipated launch will mark the start of a new era for the UK singles market, which has been hit over the past few months by new lows in physical sales oil the high street but rapid growth in download sales online.
The new-look chart will bring the UK in line width the US, after Billboard announced that it was incorporating digital sales into the Hot 100 countdown for the first time earlier this month. The move will also finally reflect a dramatic change in the way the singles sector now operates, with individual download sales (342,000 a week ago) rapidly dosing the gap on the shrinking physical market (396,000 units in the same week).
BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson says, "It will be the most significant change in the way the chart is made up for many, many years and it reflects the way consumers are now buying music."
Although everything is now technically in place to deliver the new combined rundown, the launch has been delayed from an originally proposed launch on March 20 because of BPI concerns that indie repertoire is ...