Kent Music Report
Encyclopedia
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent
David Kent (historian)
David Kent is an Australian music historian and pop-culture writer, he produced the Kent Music Report from May 1974 to 1996, it was known as the Australian Music Report from 1987. The music reports were a weekly listing of the National Top 100 chart positions of singles and albums...
from May 1974 through to 1998. After 1988, the Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
, who had been using the report under license for a number of years, chose to produce their own charts as the 'ARIA Charts
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
'.
Prior to the Kent Report, Go-Set
Go-Set
Go-Set was the first Australian pop music newspaper, published weekly from 2 February 1966 to 24 August 1974, and was founded in Melbourne by Phillip Frazer, Peter Raphael and Tony Schauble...
magazine published weekly Top-40 Singles from 1966 and Album charts from 1970 until the magazine's demise in August 1974.
David Kent later publicised the Australian charts from 1940–1973 in a retrospective fashion using state by state chart data obtained from various Australian radio stations.
Background
Kent had spent a number of years previously working in the music industry at both EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
and Phonogram
Phonogram Records
Phonogram Records was started in 1962 as a joint venture between Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon. In 1972, Phonogram was merged with Polydor Records into PolyGram....
records and had developed the report initially as a hobby. The 'Kent Music Report' was first released on a commercial basis in July 1974 and was offered for subscription.
The report data was initially based solely on radio station charts from around the country, which were then amalgamated using a points based ranking system that Kent had developed. These radio station charts were compiled primarily using data collected from local record stores and, as such, were based primarily on retail sales (i.e. they were not airplay charts).
In 1976, as funding from subscriptions grew, Kent himself started collecting sales data from retail stores to supplement the radio station charts (which were also based on sales data). His operation grew and staff were employed to assist with research. Within a year or so, the major record companies started using the Report for their own marketing programs and it had established itself as the leading national chart publication.
From 1982, retail sales data collected by Kent and his staff were used exclusively and radio station charts were dropped from the primary tabulations. Some radio station chart data was used as supplementary information, however.
At about the same time, the Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
was established by the major record companies, being EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, Festival Records
Festival Records (Australia)
Festival Records was an Australian music recording and publishing company which was founded in Sydney in 1952 and operated until 2005....
, CBS (now known as Sony Music), RCA (now known as BMG
BMG
Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...
), WEA (now known as Warner Music) and Polygram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
(now known as Universal). From 1983 until 1988 ARIA had a licensing arrangement with Kent to use the Report under their own banner.
The Kent Report continued however and in 1987 was rebadged as the 'Australian Music Report' (AMR). In 1988 the arrangement with ARIA ended and the ARIA Charts
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
were produced in-house by the Association.
In April 1998, The AMR charts ceased publishing, leaving the ARIA charts as the only nationally recognised chart publication.
Further chart work published by David Kent
In 1993, David KentDavid Kent (historian)
David Kent is an Australian music historian and pop-culture writer, he produced the Kent Music Report from May 1974 to 1996, it was known as the Australian Music Report from 1987. The music reports were a weekly listing of the National Top 100 chart positions of singles and albums...
published his Australian Chart Book 1970 - 1992. This was based on his chart data already published as the "Kent Music Report" from May 1974 onwards. He specially "retro-calculated" charts based on state-based Australian radio station charts available to him dated prior to May 1974, to fill in the missing years (1970-1974). On this basis, he also put together Australian national charts from 1940 - 1969, published as Australian Chart Book 1940 - 1969 in 2005. Prior to 1949, radio station music charts in Australia were only available on a monthly basis, and this is reflected in his published data. Although ARIA published the official Australian National charts from 1988 onwards, Kent continued to calculate charts from this date, data from which were published in a third book in his Australian Chart Book series.