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Ever Wonder What An Australian "CHUM Chart" Looked Like?
Everyone who grew up in Toronto or the GTA knows what a CHUM Chart looks like. It became the hotline for hits for an entire generation or more. There were similar lists in the U.S., where WYSL in Buffalo, WABC New York and KHJ Los Angeles were just a few that put out their own weekly rankings of the week's best-selling records.
But North America wasn't the only place that left these precious papers on the stands for kids to collect. They had them in other places in the world, including the Land Down Under. One of the radio stations that was the CHUM of its day was called 2SM (Australian radio outlets back then mostly all began with a number) and put out a weekly chart for listeners.
According to Wikipedia, the comparison with CHUM isn't an exaggeration. The station was amongst the most successful of all time in the island country, playing the hits at the (to us) awkward dial position of 1269 AM. "From around 1970 until the mid-1980s, 2SM dominated Sydney commercial radio. At its peak in the late-1970s it was the highest rating and most profitable station in the history of Australian radio. It epitomized and defined commercial AM Top 40 radio practice around the country for fifteen years and long after 2SM itself lost popularity, its successful programming formula was still influencing its FM band successors."
Here are a few examples of what Top 40 looked like in Sydney on this month back in 1974, some 48 years ago. It's fascinating to see so many titles that were only hits in Oz, tunes that never made it to this part of the world.
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Re: Ever Wonder What An Australian "CHUM Chart" Looked Like?
Certainly a lot different than the top 40 charts here. A couple of country songs on the chart, and three cancon. Didn't know that Gary and Dave were sort of a thing in Australia in 1974. I guess the songs and artists that are unfamiliar were mostly Australian, British, or from New Zealand?
Aussie radio did and does play a certain amount of homegrown music on their stations. Music quotas down under began in 1942 with stations playing 2-5% domestic music. Today commercial stations are expected to play 25% Australian music 6am to 12midnight. But ever since the free trade agreement with the US the music quotas are self regulating. In the Free Trade Agreement Australia consented that commercial stations wouldn't play over 25% Australian music.
Monitoring has shown that most commercial stations don't play anywhere near this. Australia's most popular stations are playing 7-11% Australian music in an average week. The government run channels of the ABC radio network play 40-50% Australian music. Community stations play around 35%.
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paterson1 wrote:
Certainly a lot different than the top 40 charts here. A couple of country songs on the chart, and three cancon. Didn't know that Gary and Dave were sort of a thing in Australia in 1974. I guess the songs and artists that are unfamiliar were mostly Australian, British, or from New Zealand?
Daryl Braithwaite, one of the artists featured on the "Hit Bounds" on the blue chart, had an almost-Top 40 hit in the U.S. back in 1991 with a song called "Higher Than Hope", which peaked at #47 on the Billboard Hot 100. I remember playing it on 95.3 CKDS-FM (the predecessor of Y95/Y108) when they were known as Hamilton's Light Rock. Great song.
PJ
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Re: Ever Wonder What An Australian "CHUM Chart" Looked Like?
Found a few more I'd long forgotten about. These are from 1975 and as you can see, the format of the charts changed in a year.
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Re: Ever Wonder What An Australian "CHUM Chart" Looked Like?
I listened to some of the titles listed in the charts above on YouTube. I'd never heard of any of them. Some were decent, but a few were so out there - and still were big hits Down Under - that it shows how very different the music scene was on the other side of the world.
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Thread Starter- Fitz
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I remember hearing Skyhooks on FM radio here. I did a quick check of the last top 40 chart posted and at least 20 songs were by non down under artists. Also on the album charts posted earlier 90 % of the artists were not from down under.
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some other observations about that last chart:
1. Mister Postman by the Carpenters was originally a minor hit in North America 1969 and I think their first single. Strange to see it ranked so high on this chart 6 years later.
2.Suzi Quatro before her "Leather" days on Happy Days was a huge star in the UK during the glam movement. I think her only near hit in North America was 48 Crash
3. Splinter was a group on George Harrison's Dark Horse label and they got some FM airplay here. In fact I think I still have their first album which I won on CHUM FM
4. Status Quo only had one big hit in North America with Pictures of Matchstick men but they were huge in the UK even after that and into the 70's.
5. Streets of London by Ralph McTell got a lot of airplay on FM here but did not break the top 40.
This Top 40 was certainly eclectic. Maybe 3 Dog Night's first single and near hit in North America in 1969 "Try a Little Tenderness" later made the Top 40 in Australia.
Last edited by Fitz (November 8, 2022 3:15 pm)
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Some observations on the above observations: 
1. I think you might be thinking of the Carpenters' remake of Ticket To Ride which was their first single. Postman was a #1 hit for them on Billboard in 1975.
2. Stumblin' In was a #4 hit on Billboard for Quatro in a duet with Chris Norman. She had a few other solo records that just missed the top 40.
3. I'm not familiar with Costafine Town, but it must have gotten some top 40 airplay in the US ... it reached #77 on Billboard.
4. And yes, Quo had many UK hits in the 1970s and beyond. That would have contributed to their continued success in Australia as well.
Last edited by Lorne (November 8, 2022 3:43 pm)
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Costafine Town got a lot of airplay on what was then known as WGRQ-FM in Buffalo, a Top 40 station with a wider playlist, which is the only place I recall hearing it. It was on George Harrison's Dark Horse label and he produced the record and played guitar on it.
It's a great song and one of those "shoulda been a bigger hit."
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Thread Starter- Fitz
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Re: Ever Wonder What An Australian "CHUM Chart" Looked Like?
Some observations on the above observations:
1. I think you might be thinking of the Carpenters' remake of Ticket To Ride which was their first single. Postman was a #1 hit for them on Billboard in 1975.
2. Stumblin' In was a #4 hit on Billboard for Quatro in a duet with Chris Norman. She had a few other solo records that just missed the top 40.
3. I'm not familiar with Costafine Town, but it must have gotten some top 40 airplay in the US ... it reached #77 on Billboard.
4. And yes, Quo had many UK hits in the 1970s and beyond. That would have contributed to their continued success in Australia as well.
You are right Lorne I was reading Postman and thinking Ticket and I forgot about Quatro's duet with Chris Norman. 48 Crash is the track that I remember getting some airplay during the glam era and I missed the fact that she may have had some mainstream success in North America post Happy Days. I always associate her with UK glam.
Last edited by Fitz (November 9, 2022 1:48 am)
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Can't resist posting this. Some may call it trash but I like it just as I like Cherry Bomb by the Runaways which included a pre-fame Joan Jett:
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