Article Summary: 'Online Sales Force BBC Out Of Pop Chart Groove' By Owen Gibson

The keypoints of this article (published on Friday 26th January 2007, The Guardian) are:

• Shifting record buying habits and new chart rules have caused BBC radio stations to radically overhaul their playlists, ditching their decades-old policy of playing tracks in advance of them hitting the shops and looking instead to potential internet sales.
• The chart rules changed this month to allow downloads without an accompanying physical release to count towards the charts.
• The chart rule changes have led to unsigned acts making the top 40 and back catalogue tracks hitting the charts.
• In some cases, songs will have stopped being played on the radio by the time they hit the shops.
• A spokesperson for Radio 2 said "We will no longer defer to physical release dates which may mean a track which also has a physical release date some weeks after its download date may be taken off the playlist before the physical release date."
• Radio 1 has told record labels that DJs will now refer to when tracks are "available to buy digitally" rather than telling listeners when they will be in the shops.
• Music industry experts expect the changes to also benefit unsigned acts, who under the new rules can now make the charts through online sales provided they have built up a large enough fanbase.
• Record labels are banking on the rules to revitalise the singles charts and give tracks a longer life but they have already led to oddities.