Singles Sales These Days

[Birchy]

Looking through my GBOHS (sounds like a dating agency acronym!) I see that singles going straight in at number one used to be a rarity. Now they all seem to. Can anybody tell me what yer average single has to sell to achieve this? And can anybody also confirm that today's sales are way down on what they were in (say) the sixties and seventies?

[darth vader]

Don't know actual figures but i once heard (in last few years) on TOTP that a single (vinyl) used to have to sell around 45,000 just to make the top 40 now it can get to number 1 (CD) with that. Singles sales are definitely not what they used to be, since they went to CD format, as fewer people buy them. Also price wars affect sales as newer singles tend to be plugged at cheaper prices simply to get it to number 1