From the 14th of June, the Sunday afternoon chart show ‘Hit 40 UK’ will vanish from the commercial radio network.
The Sunday afternoon chart show started back in 1984 to compete against the BBC Radio 1 chart. Heard across the UK Independent Local Radio network, “The Network Chart” was originally presented by David ‘Kid’ Jenson, then Neil ‘Dr, Dr…’ Fox.
The Network Chart rebranded to “Hit 40 UK” in 2003, and currently pulls in around 1.4 million listeners on a Sunday afternoon.
Replacing the UK Top 40 will be a new show, called “The Big Top 40 Show”, going out from 4 to 7pm on Sundays. This will be broadcast on over 140 UK commercial radio stations, including the Heart network. The show will be presented by Capital FM evening jock Rich Clark and Kat Shoob, and will be strongly linked with Apple iTunes.
The new show is being billed as an interactive chart show, as listeners will be able to affect the Top 10 during the show by downloading their favourite tracks from the iTunes store. “The Big Top 40 Show” will build its chart based on digital downloads as well as commercial radio station airplay, whilst the BBC Radio 1 chart still includes physical music sales.
