Reproduced from Music Week 20 December, 1997

Cook's two-part programme, screened on June 3 and 10, claimed to reveal widespread hyping, chart manipulation and other unsavoury practices within record companies, distributors, marketing outfits and retailers. Cook had hired Debbie Currie, daughter of former Conservative MP Edwina, to pose as a pop singer and employed Mike Stock, whose label's Santa Maria single by Tatjana had been pulled from the chart under suspicion of hyping, to produce it.

Currie (pictured with Cook), Barry Tomes, the owner of small Midlands label Gotham and Cook's team had then attempted to expose industry corruption. However, its methods to uncover wrong-doing were universally slammed by companies drawn in by the Carlton programme's "sting" and earned immediate condemnation from industry bodies including the BPI and senior industry figures.

A catalogue of factual errors, including the use of a retailer unconnected to the Millward Brown chart panel, wrongfully claiming Total was owned by BMG, the implication that discounting was illegal and describing the BPI as being controlled by the majors, severely undermined the programme's credibility. The singular failure of Currie's single, You Can Do Magic, to chart in the Top 75, despite the Cook Report's sustained efforts to hype it, also added no weight to its claims. At the time, PolyGram UK chairman John Kennedy protested: "Until now, Roger Cook was someone whom I had immense respect for. But this programme seemed a very poor piece of journalism."

Unfortunately, attempts by the industry bodies to persuade the ITC to censure Cook or Carlton on the grounds of "obligations of fairness and a respect for the truth" failed.

The Cook Report's editor David Mannion believed the ITC's eventual decision to throw out music industry complaints in October validated the investigation. However, even Tomes was left with a sour taste in his mouth. After the programmes aired he claimed he had been duped by the programme-makers.