No idea for sure, DJones, but by the time of Darren Burn's launch in July, 1973, they had already spent £150,000 at 1973 prices...which would be millions of pounds at 2009 prices and they would have spent a lot more by the time they ended his contract just over a year later.

At the time of his initial two singles, there seemed to be a big poster in every record shop with his photo on it and bearing the legend "Introducing Darren Burn." His first single was played a lot on the radio and it was chosen as Tony Blackburn's Record Of The Week on Radio 1 from Monday, July 23rd, to Friday, July 27th, 1973 and played every day. In addition, he was in most of the newspapers and fan magazines and the BBC must have considered him important enough to make the Man Alive film about him, which, with hindsight, could now be regarded as the documentation of a prelude to tragedy. Although in the summer of 1973, it really did look to myself and others that we were witnessing the birth of a superstar.

Someone who worked for EMI at the time told me he reckoned that they didn't spend as much on Darren as they could have done, because it would have looked odd, with his father being an executive at the company.

I don't know how much JK spent on Ricky Wilde's promotion at the time, but my guess is nowhere near the vast amount EMI spent on Darren Burn.

Since this thread seems to have become more music specific I've started a new one over on the Tipsheet board...