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Reproduced from Music Week, 1995
Stock offers £10,000 to name chart hyper
Love This Records owner Mike Stock is offering a £10,000 reward to
anyone who can identify the buying team thought to be responsible for
actions which led to his label's Tatjana single Santa Maria being removed
from last week's chart.
CIN is believed to be on the trail of at least one buying-in team, but
charts director Catharine Pusey declined to comment on CIN's investigation
other than to confirm that the single had been removed from the chart. "We
have very clear evidence that this record was being bought in," she says.
Stock says CIN has informed him of a group of people buying the single in
bulk from a store in the north of England. One of the group is reported to
have told a sales assistant he was from a PR company which "would like
to see the single in the chart", before asking if the shop had any more
copies.
"Clearly this person is a stooge," says Stock. "We haven't employed a
PR person to do this type of thing and we haven't employed a buying-in
team, which is the rumour going around."
Stock is offering the £10,000 reward to anyone who can identify
the so-called "PR man". He says he is also taking legal action against
the CIN for removing the record, and is aggrieved that he was not
informed until Monday.
Steve Manson, chairman of Love This's distributor Pinnacle, says he is
backing Stock all the way and describes CIN's treatment of the label
as heavy handed. "There's no bloody way on earth they would have handled
it like this if it had been a Sony or a Warners," he says. Pusey denies
Love This has been badly treated. "CIN acted in accordance with its
role to protect the integrity of the chart," she says.
Stock is inviting anyone with information to contact him at PO Box 4100,
London SE1 0YW.
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