It’s thirty years since we launched Chartwatch as a photocopied magazine
compiled from type-written snippets in 1981. Our first edition contained a 1980
annual analysis, was advertised in Record
Mirror, and was mailed out from Berlin where John and Neil met and were
working. After thirty years, Chartwatch
is launching the biggest change to affect it so far.
Even regular readers may not be aware of the huge decline in sales since
Chartwatch’s heyday in 1991; where
once we had over 200 subscribers, we now have fewer than 50. We partly blame the demise of Record Mirror and the increasing cost of
advertising in Record Collector, leaving
us no place to advertise effectively. In recent years as Internet forums have
abounded our format has started to look old hat, and we are clearly behind the
times.
We’ve resisted turning Chartwatch
into an Internet magazine for several years, because we know many of our loyal
readers are not necessarily proficient in the use of computers, but making that
change is now inevitable.
As a compromise, we will be continuing to publish a printed version of
the magazine for the time being but the emphasis will now increasingly shift
towards our website. Initially, we
will continue to make a magazine and simply post the PDF version online. But if the internet version is a hit,
then we may very well rethink the whole design and concept of the
magazine. Wouldn’t it be great to
get comprehensive listings of chart feats as they happen? As a taste of the
immediacy that the modern day web can provide, we have launched a Twitter feed
at @chartwatchmaguk. We’re starting to use this to tweet interesting
up-to-the-minute news as well as news about Chartwatch itself.
Chartwatch magazines will now be posted on
our website (www.chartwatch.co.uk) as PDFs and this issue will be
the first to be available online and in printed form. The online version will be freely accessible, so if you
would prefer to cancel your subscription and get a refund, or replace it with
an order for back numbers or annual chart booklets (which we would prefer),
then we fully understand - write to us and let us know. As subscriptions run out, we will cease
to send out renewal forms. You
will be able to renew your subscription should you want to, but you will have
either to write to us or renew through our PayPal account.
This change will also affect back numbers. With immediate effect, back numbers will be posted on our
website as soon as the stock is exhausted. Normally, Neil keeps a stock of up to five copies and
photocopies more as they are required, but that will now stop, and his wife
will be very pleased to recover a significant amount of floor space in her
spare bedroom. So if you want to
order printed versions of back numbers, now is the time!
We will not be posting the annual chart summary booklets on the Chartwatch webpage. The author of the booklets from 1995
onwards, Tobias Zywietz, maintains his own web site (http://www.zobbel.de/) where most of his booklets are
available to download as PDFs.
Printed versions of all booklets from 1983 onwards will still be
available from Chartwatch.
