@@richardupton3323 you reply to a comment from nearly two years ago and ur wrong... That Music was written by a guy called Shawn Phillips and it was played by another guy called Wynder K...It has nothing to do with LZ
Chart rigging definitely happened. In 1979 and 1980 I had a summer job in an HMV record shop as sales assistant. This HMV store was a chart diary store and I was one of the assistants that kept the diary. We were briefed by the manager on which records were to be 'helped' on a given week. Also, due to the manual nature of the diary, as in, entries were written in by hand, it was difficult to keep pace with sales at busy times, like Saturdays for example. So I would just improvise the entries for all records when it was impossible to make the entries due to the queue at the till, no barcode scanning then!! So I would just wait for a lull and scribble in what I could remember and do the massaging for the hot list. I also 'helped' along my personal favourites!! The record company reps would throw freebies at us too, not just the manager. So I got loads of picture discs, T shirts, signed singles and lps, posters, band merch, all sorts. It was as corrupt as hell!! There were alot of bands that should have done alot better than they did due to this, even to the extent of being kept off the no1 spot, even out of the top ten. Such a big thing then but just history now.
Well if that was the case it wouldn’t have been a chart return shop once BMRB found out. And no way would the HMV head office have supported such behaviour. I was on the chart panel in a HMV between 1980 and 1982 and no way was any kind of chart hyping allowed whatsoever. In fact Avis Lingard used to come in and she was hopeless. All the majors used to aggressively market singles to chart return shops, it’s just that around this time in 1979 and 1980 WEA under Johnny Fruin was acting well beyond what they should have.
@@martinwedge7732 well I guarantee you that's the way it was when I worked there. The manager had lots of closed door meetings with record company types and HMV people, and it was typical for him to have little chats with us after those meetings. When the stakes are high anything can happen.
turboslag I’m sure but can’t condone that behaviour. There were 750 chart return stores plus 250 on the back up non diary panel so that’s a lot of diaries to fix every week. Although the BMRB had offered to do a computerised system once their contract was up I think this hyping scandal had a detrimental impact on them. But if you compare the last BMRB chart with the first Gallup one at the start of 1983 there is no major difference in them. And Gallup were very rigorous and with their computer terminals there was no mistaking who was on that panel. It’s a great history thing this programme really and at a time when things were all manual. BMRB still exists as Kantar which also took hold of the later chart compiler, Millard Brown, and they are still at the forefront of market research.
@@martinwedge7732 I remember this documentary and heard about the changeover to Gallup which meant no more rigging. I was keen to see their first chart to see if there was a major difference. There wasn't. But i suppose this documentary put a stop to a lot of what had been happening, so 81 and 82 were probably a lot more accurate
To live through a fascination with the 'Top 100' in 1980 really was something. My mum bought me the Record Mirror every week and I just loved it. You'd see something like The Vapors go in with Turning Japanese around no.70, rise to something like 42... I can't remember the details but it was great fun to see.
@theoriginalbluey a similar thing happened with The Firm's "Star Trekking" leaping from No.74 to No.11 & then to No.1. At least The Vapors song was much better
Love the theme tune. As a kid it used to freak me out especially with opening titles featuring da Vinci's Vetruvian Man and that haunting sounding organ.
Investigative journalism. I remember that. Back when a commercial channel was brave enough to put resources into documentaries, potentially biting the very hands that feeds them. I've often wondered whether all of the UK commercial radio payola incidents I've witnessed personally or have heard about would ever be exposed. I don't suppose it matters anymore.
I thought I was the only kid in the 80s scared from the world in action theme with that naked red dude. However it seems it terrorised a nation of children
I'll guess it was the choice of instrument and the key it was in. It made me feel uneasy too. The theme to Weekend World, on the other hand, just blew my mind every Sunday for most of the 70s.
@@blastfromthepast8344I still love the full Nantucket Sleighride by Mountain. Amazing track. Played LOUD. One of the most powerful and distinctive theme tunes.
Thank you so much for this upload! Never thought I'd see it! This program was written about in Soviet papers in 1982-ish as an example of how corrupt the Western showbiz is and how everything it offers is not genuine but all hype (with implication that Soviet youth must stop listening to Western music and turn to good and proper Soviet music).
Not many. But it's all bollocks, pop music I mean. Cardi B waving her ass around and squezzing her (fake) boobs to camera, All the while wailing about how opressed she is, just to name 1. I could do a fairly lengthy list.
The biggest example of "chart rigging" happened in the summer of1977 when the Sex Pistol's God save the Queen was "miraculously" held off the number 1 spot by Rod Stewart.
Interesting viewing back in 1980 and blew the lid on what was going on - it seems by 1979 hyping was all over the chart. I liked Dollar at the time and was upset to hear "Love's Gotta Hold On Me" was hyped. Looking at its chart positions now - it's obvious where this happened. It goes from 59 to 55 then to 23! How the sudden jump?
Was unaware that Gary Numan Cars was hyped? I do know Caravan of Love by The Housemartins was robbed of the Xmas #1 to Jackie Wilson Reet Petite. Which was fiddled by the charts.
I remember watching this edition of World In Action when it were originally broadcast & while it were brilliant as usual, chart hyping wasn't a new trend even back then. And it wasn't just record shops who were offered perks in exchange for records being hyped. In 1988, when Bros helped lauch Radio 1's FM service beyond London, their latest single "I Quit" was guaranteed airplay throughout that day. To underline the situation further, on the network's 21st birthday, there was a listeners all-time Top 100 chart & what do you know, Bros' "I Owe You Nothing" tops the chart supposedly beating Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" into 2nd place. The station's switchboard was reportedly jammed with listeners complaining about the blatant fix that had clearly happened
@ajs41 that one I can definitely believe. I lived in North-East England & was able to pick up BBC Radio Scotland. On a Friday night, they would broadcast the Scottish Top 40 & while The Pinkees' "Danger Games" was riding high in the UK chart, it was nowhere to be found in the Scottish charts
Record companies always gave away cheap and free singles to chart return stores. The BMRB charts were accurate overall if a single wasn’t selling it couldn’t be hyped into the main top 40. Maybe into the lower reaches of the top 75 but then it was sink or swim. I know because I was on that chart panel in the early 80s.
That actually makes perfect sense. There's no way they could make a song look like a hit. Promote it better than anyone else could, yes, but that's business. Anything that was ever in the top 40 was because of genuine sales.
Martin Wedge they sold too many records in the 80s for you to make a difference near the top of the charts. You could only manipulate the bottom end. It was more about getting into the top 40 so you could get on top of the pops. By the end of the 90s sales were so low you could practically buy a number one record. Thats why the charts died.
The whole point of the chart rigging was to get certain records in the charts,as records not reached a chart position, then it would not be played by the BBC: simple as that.
World In Action was made by Granada Television of old for the ITV Network as it was then. It ran from 1963 to 1998 when oddly it was cancelled. It was mostly shown on a Monday night from 8.30-9.00pm up against BBC1's Panorama series which was at 8.10-9.00pm at the time. Panorama though was later at 9.30-10.10pm though. The time where World In Action used to be is now of course taken up by Coronation Street as we know. Thank you of course anyway!!
Nonsense. What about the Post Office scandal they've just blown wide open? After the govt. spent decades trying to bury it. The irony of your comment 😂
@@stepheng8779 well i wouldn't say it was blown wide but what they did do is take control of the narrative. This allowed them to close the crime and every politician escaped any blame🥳🎉
+John Spartan Because modern technology meant a faster compilation time in less than 20 hours rather than 2 days. And it also meant Radio 1's Top 40 was more up to date than the commercial radio Network Chart, whose chart sales week ran Friday to Thursday back then (and also included airplay)
@edwardevans8685 yes there's been many examples of that happening. In 1991, the BBC had a show called "Caught In The Act" hosted by Shane Ritchie. Virtually identical to Granada's "You've Been Framed", nobody liked it yet it was allegedly watched by over 10 million viewers
And now look at the singles chart, it’s now a consumption chart and not based on sales at all. Even if the charts were rigged back then the music was still better with more varied artists and genres unlike today.
Ffwd to 2023 and WIiA's successor ITV's _Tonight_ has the Johnson family from Dudley swapping big brand foods for a supermarket's own label alternatives to see if they can tell the difference - or some other cr*p like that.
Brian Epstein also bought hundreds and hundreds of copies of Love Me Do for his NEMS record store……..so, yes, it was partly how they got going. Endless gigs up and down the country also helped enormously.
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Need programmes like this again. I used to be scared of the theme as a child but brings back memories
I know what you mean.
Yes it used to make me feel worried! It still does a bit!
I was just thinking the exact same thing. You knew that theme signified some serious shit that your little child mind could barely handle
Ha ha I thought it was just me that was scared of the theme music along with the picture of the naked guy with four arms and legs lol.
Lol me too. Something un-nerving about that theme tune
That theme music is astonishing.
dream catcher It’s called Jam for World in Action
Led zeppelin.
@@mikebrownlee9878 it's not led Zeppelin
@@StevieZero yes it is.
@@richardupton3323 you reply to a comment from nearly two years ago and ur wrong... That Music was written by a guy called Shawn Phillips and it was played by another guy called Wynder K...It has nothing to do with LZ
Chart rigging definitely happened. In 1979 and 1980 I had a summer job in an HMV record shop as sales assistant. This HMV store was a chart diary store and I was one of the assistants that kept the diary. We were briefed by the manager on which records were to be 'helped' on a given week. Also, due to the manual nature of the diary, as in, entries were written in by hand, it was difficult to keep pace with sales at busy times, like Saturdays for example. So I would just improvise the entries for all records when it was impossible to make the entries due to the queue at the till, no barcode scanning then!! So I would just wait for a lull and scribble in what I could remember and do the massaging for the hot list. I also 'helped' along my personal favourites!! The record company reps would throw freebies at us too, not just the manager. So I got loads of picture discs, T shirts, signed singles and lps, posters, band merch, all sorts. It was as corrupt as hell!! There were alot of bands that should have done alot better than they did due to this, even to the extent of being kept off the no1 spot, even out of the top ten. Such a big thing then but just history now.
Well if that was the case it wouldn’t have been a chart return shop once BMRB found out. And no way would the HMV head office have supported such behaviour. I was on the chart panel in a HMV between 1980 and 1982 and no way was any kind of chart hyping allowed whatsoever. In fact Avis Lingard used to come in and she was hopeless. All the majors used to aggressively market singles to chart return shops, it’s just that around this time in 1979 and 1980 WEA under Johnny Fruin was acting well beyond what they should have.
@@martinwedge7732 well I guarantee you that's the way it was when I worked there. The manager had lots of closed door meetings with record company types and HMV people, and it was typical for him to have little chats with us after those meetings. When the stakes are high anything can happen.
turboslag I’m sure but can’t condone that behaviour. There were 750 chart return stores plus 250 on the back up non diary panel so that’s a lot of diaries to fix every week. Although the BMRB had offered to do a computerised system once their contract was up I think this hyping scandal had a detrimental impact on them. But if you compare the last BMRB chart with the first Gallup one at the start of 1983 there is no major difference in them. And Gallup were very rigorous and with their computer terminals there was no mistaking who was on that panel. It’s a great history thing this programme really and at a time when things were all manual. BMRB still exists as Kantar which also took hold of the later chart compiler, Millard Brown, and they are still at the forefront of market research.
@@martinwedge7732 I remember this documentary and heard about the changeover to Gallup which meant no more rigging. I was keen to see their first chart to see if there was a major difference. There wasn't. But i suppose this documentary put a stop to a lot of what had been happening, so 81 and 82 were probably a lot more accurate
Are you on Bidens Election Team Now Then 🤔
£10k was a lot of money in 1980. My mother bought a house in 1979 for £8k.
To live through a fascination with the 'Top 100' in 1980 really was something. My mum bought me the Record Mirror every week and I just loved it. You'd see something like The Vapors go in with Turning Japanese around no.70, rise to something like 42... I can't remember the details but it was great fun to see.
@theoriginalbluey a similar thing happened with The Firm's "Star Trekking" leaping from No.74 to No.11 & then to No.1. At least The Vapors song was much better
Love the theme tune. As a kid it used to freak me out especially with opening titles featuring da Vinci's Vetruvian Man and that haunting sounding organ.
Yes, the Hammond B2 Organ played through a Marshall and Leslie - nothing like it !
Investigative journalism. I remember that. Back when a commercial channel was brave enough to put resources into documentaries, potentially biting the very hands that feeds them. I've often wondered whether all of the UK commercial radio payola incidents I've witnessed personally or have heard about would ever be exposed. I don't suppose it matters anymore.
I thought I was the only kid in the 80s scared from the world in action theme with that naked red dude. However it seems it terrorised a nation of children
Then Channel 4 came along with that “Equinox!!!” shriek!🤣🤣🤣
I'll guess it was the choice of instrument and the key it was in. It made me feel uneasy too. The theme to Weekend World, on the other hand, just blew my mind every Sunday for most of the 70s.
@@blastfromthepast8344I still love the full Nantucket Sleighride by Mountain. Amazing track. Played LOUD. One of the most powerful and distinctive theme tunes.
Gosh, World in Action looked at British Pop Chart rigging long before The Cook Report did 17 years later.
Excellent upload! Thanks.
Thank you so much for this upload! Never thought I'd see it!
This program was written about in Soviet papers in 1982-ish as an example of how corrupt the Western showbiz is and how everything it offers is not genuine but all hype (with implication that Soviet youth must stop listening to Western music and turn to good and proper Soviet music).
Spinal Taps 'Smell The Glove' was kept out of the charts because of the sexist cover. There was a film about it.
and now who gives a toss about the top 40
dlamiss so true
I don't. Not bothered for years. Most recently with streaming. How can you rate chart music by streams ?
I've got a lot of the charts from the 1980s embedded in my brain, and that's without even trying to make an effort to remember them.
Not many. But it's all bollocks, pop music I mean. Cardi B waving her ass around and squezzing her (fake) boobs to camera, All the while wailing about how opressed she is, just to name 1. I could do a fairly lengthy list.
The charts are a complete joke now. Nobody knows what's No.1 anymore, back then it was well known due to radio and millions of viewers to TOTP
This is why Joe Dolce kept Ultravox off the top spot!!
Whats the matter you HEY gotta no respect ?
Shaddapa your face!
: This means nothing to me
That song drove me mad then and still does.
Funny you should mention Ultravox as their fantastic "Vienna" LP is at the top of the printed chart on 3:04 :)
The biggest example of "chart rigging" happened in the summer of1977 when the Sex Pistol's God save the Queen was "miraculously" held off the number 1 spot by Rod Stewart.
I'm surprised it even got to No.2!
I was a child of the 70's, but punk music just sounded like a horrible noise to me.
@@hermanmunster3358then you grew up, right?
@peterboczan2116 I remember that as well. When I think of it, I wonder (in a humorous way) if Mary Whitehouse was involved in this
The charts,,,recorded music,,,!,,,,radio chart shows,,,r.i.p.
1:29 Pink Floyd The Wall - how cool is that?
Interesting viewing back in 1980 and blew the lid on what was going on - it seems by 1979 hyping was all over the chart. I liked Dollar at the time and was upset to hear "Love's Gotta Hold On Me" was hyped. Looking at its chart positions now - it's obvious where this happened. It goes from 59 to 55 then to 23! How the sudden jump?
michaelleacy Because it was selling and started moving up
@@martinwedge7732 yes, but if you're familiar with charts a trajectory of 59-55-23 is highly unlikely
Was unaware that Gary Numan Cars was hyped? I do know Caravan of Love by The Housemartins was robbed of the Xmas #1 to Jackie Wilson Reet Petite. Which was fiddled by the charts.
Expressos were brilliant, it is a national shame that they needed to be hyped into the charts. Philistines, the lot of yaz!
I remember watching this edition of World In Action when it were originally broadcast & while it were brilliant as usual, chart hyping wasn't a new trend even back then.
And it wasn't just record shops who were offered perks in exchange for records being hyped. In 1988, when Bros helped lauch Radio 1's FM service beyond London, their latest single "I Quit" was guaranteed airplay throughout that day.
To underline the situation further, on the network's 21st birthday, there was a listeners all-time Top 100 chart & what do you know, Bros' "I Owe You Nothing" tops the chart supposedly beating Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" into 2nd place. The station's switchboard was reportedly jammed with listeners complaining about the blatant fix that had clearly happened
Danger Games by The Pinkees is alleged to have been a major chart hype record, in 1982.
@ajs41 that one I can definitely believe. I lived in North-East England & was able to pick up BBC Radio Scotland.
On a Friday night, they would broadcast the Scottish Top 40 & while The Pinkees' "Danger Games" was riding high in the UK chart, it was nowhere to be found in the Scottish charts
7:15 wow a whole 25 quid? Outrageous!!!!!!!!!!!!
Notice that the closing credits are in the same style as those on Top Of The Pops?
Record companies always gave away cheap and free singles to chart return stores. The BMRB charts were accurate overall if a single wasn’t selling it couldn’t be hyped into the main top 40. Maybe into the lower reaches of the top 75 but then it was sink or swim. I know because I was on that chart panel in the early 80s.
That actually makes perfect sense. There's no way they could make a song look like a hit. Promote it better than anyone else could, yes, but that's business. Anything that was ever in the top 40 was because of genuine sales.
Kiinell Yes totally and WEA were quite aggressive around this time but if singles did not sell they wouldn’t be in the chart x
Martin Wedge they sold too many records in the 80s for you to make a difference near the top of the charts. You could only manipulate the bottom end. It was more about getting into the top 40 so you could get on top of the pops. By the end of the 90s sales were so low you could practically buy a number one record. Thats why the charts died.
The US used similar techniques for radio, known as 'payola.'
The whole point of the chart rigging was to get certain records in the charts,as records not reached a chart position, then it would not be played by the BBC: simple as that.
World In Action was made by Granada Television of old for the ITV Network as it was then. It ran from 1963 to 1998 when oddly it was cancelled. It was mostly shown on a Monday night from 8.30-9.00pm up against BBC1's Panorama series which was at 8.10-9.00pm at the time. Panorama though was later at 9.30-10.10pm though. The time where World In Action used to be is now of course taken up by Coronation Street as we know.
Thank you of course anyway!!
And now these same people are copyright police
I think John Deacon is also a member of Queen rock band 😀
Hard to believe that ITV were capable of producing brilliant programmes like this instead of the dumbed down crap they show now.
Nonsense. What about the Post Office scandal they've just blown wide open? After the govt. spent decades trying to bury it.
The irony of your comment 😂
@@stepheng8779 Compared to what they used to do in 70s and 80s it's dumbed down crap. one worthwhile programme doesn't change that.
@@stepheng8779 well i wouldn't say it was blown wide but what they did do is take control of the narrative. This allowed them to close the crime and every politician escaped any blame🥳🎉
The top 40 became irrelevant with the death of the 7" and 12" vinyl single.
And TOTP.
… and the death of the CD single alongside the birth of streaming.
Wasnt ready for 08:52 lol.
Remember the soundtrack well it used to creep me out as a kid also lol
"And what would the dealer get in return for falsifying these figures?" "I'd sleep with him."
Rock n roll.
Why was it moved from Tuesday lunchtime to Sunday evening?
+John Spartan Because modern technology meant a faster compilation time in less than 20 hours rather than 2 days. And it also meant Radio 1's Top 40 was more up to date than the commercial radio Network Chart, whose chart sales week ran Friday to Thursday back then (and also included airplay)
So we could all record the music on our tape recorders and try and miss out the DJ spoiling it talking
Godfrey Rust later went to work at Gallup who took over compilation of the chart from January 1983
That would explain Madness’ success then😂
The TV viewing figures are misrepresented as well
@edwardevans8685 yes there's been many examples of that happening.
In 1991, the BBC had a show called "Caught In The Act" hosted by Shane Ritchie. Virtually identical to Granada's "You've Been Framed", nobody liked it yet it was allegedly watched by over 10 million viewers
I'm so gonna buy an organ now.
And now look at the singles chart, it’s now a consumption chart and not based on sales at all. Even if the charts were rigged back then the music was still better with more varied artists and genres unlike today.
This explains why some really bad records charted well
Payola is alive and well it would seem.
Ffwd to 2023 and WIiA's successor ITV's _Tonight_ has the Johnson family from Dudley swapping big brand foods for a supermarket's own label alternatives to see if they can tell the difference - or some other cr*p like that.
.w. !!
Bunch of women ticking artists by the phone.. Ermmmm...
This is exactly how the Beatles got going. What is the problem?
Brian Epstein also bought hundreds and hundreds of copies of Love Me Do for his NEMS record store……..so, yes, it was partly how they got going. Endless gigs up and down the country also helped enormously.
The people in that office looked ready for retirement what did they know about current music !
They didn't need to know anything about music. They were just counting numbers
Hahahaha that's how they were back then
Giving away Earth , wind and fire albums? 😂. These guys knew how to do corruption.
It was Russia wot did it! They totally did.
I like Hazel O'Connor, I hope she deserved her chart positions....
Yeah well done World in Action for fking over the Expressos who deserved to make it big.
Music business in 'not squeaky clean' shock. Not one of the more astounding revelations from World in Action.
Should have had the Dominian Voting machines the World could have chosen our No1 hit single then 👍
It is a sham (not 69) do recording live, not miming.