Sadly, as the interest in The Record of the Year has shrunk, so have the quantity of visits and votes to our site - without broadcast for a show, there seems little point in continuing the project.

As fewer and fewer people care about good music and the industry gets run by men in suits, there's no reason to highlight the big hits of the year. So, after 15 happy years, we are announcing the project closed.

Sad.

JK2006 wrote:
Sadly, as the interest in The Record of the Year has shrunk, so have the quantity of visits and votes to our site - without broadcast for a show, there seems little point in continuing the project.

As fewer and fewer people care about good music and the industry gets run by men in suits, there's no reason to highlight the big hits of the year. So, after 15 happy years, we are announcing the project closed.

Sad.


Re-launch it as a podcast. Host it, get guests to contribute, get listeners to vote, build it up to a big finish. I listened to a few local podcasts in Seattle when I worked there last year and they really worked, I actually bought several of the songs after they'd been featured.

I've thought for a while that a podcast would suit you down to the ground. You could have a main one for maybe a monthly monologue about the industry and what you're up to - so much more appealing than a messageboard bombarded with spam and limited by the need to try twice to get past it every visit -and have a separate one as Pru says for a Record of the Year. They're really easy to do and troll-free and you'll reach far more people.

Interesting. A sad announcement is met by an admirably constructive response and is completely ignored. Says it all.

Well spotted Tabs; yes, that's what is truly sad. I sent the announcement to both Music Week and Record of the Day (is that still going? They got the name from our show - the Editor worked for me then). Hopefully they will carry it briefly.

The show boosted retail sales enormously for the December period, putting literally millions of pounds extra into the economy... John Kennedy, then Chairman of PolyGram, who won in the first year with Boyzone's No Matter What - told me the show added a million sales to the album - that's over 10 million pounds extra profit for label, shops, group, writers...

But the real boost - immeasurable - came in generally increased sales for music. At the time the retailers told me walk-in sales increased substantially in the weeks before Christmas - about 20% more than in previous years.

Two hours of prime time ITV music two weeks before Christmas. What a massive boost for music. But does anyone today in our industry give a shit? No way.