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Brazil's President Rousseff grapples with corruption BBC News | Name | Media Control GfK International |
|---|---|
| Size | 200px |
| Formation | 1976 |
| Type | Market research, Service Provider of Media Monitoring, Analysis and Evaluation |
| Headquarters | Baden Baden |
| Location | Germany |
| Leader title | Managing Director |
| Leader name | Ulrike Altig |
| Website | www.media-control.de |
Official charts in Germany are presented by various companies who release charts on a weekly basis, online or on television. One example would be VIVA music channel which was founded in 1993. Another two examples would be MusicLoad and MIX 1 both of which are online associations who post almost all the charts on weekly bases published by Media Control GfK International. The entire batch of the official charts; however, is presented by online enterprise called Charts.de which happens to be the subsidiary of Media Control GfK International.
In June 1959, the second institution began its monthly chart determination, Der Musikmarkt (The Music Market). The charts provided by the latter appeared to be more mature in a sense that it provided not only what "Der Automatenmarkt" did, but also presented a combination of sales figures and airplay entries which was to be the present record sales determination. The first number one hit that appeared in the charts of "Der Musikmarkt" was Freddy Quinn's Die Gitarre und das Meer, which at that time was the number one on the charts of "Der Automatenmarkt".
After delivering the charts for a short period of time, "Der Musikmarkt" became the official German chart provider. However, it took nearly one year for the "Musikmarkt" charts to stabilize its strongly fluctuating range within chart positions which would, in the beginning, run from 20 to 70 sometimes during a single publishing. In 1960, charts would still appear in the magazine once a month, on the 15th of every issue but with consistent 50 positions, which would on rare occasions run up to 54 mostly.
By the beginning of 1965, the number of positions was reduced to 40 spots, however, twice a month this time around, once on the first of the month and also on the 15th. This did not last for more than six years, as in 1971 "Musikmarkt" began to deliver its charts on a weekly basis, the number of which were increased back to 50 spots.
It wasn't until 1977, however, that Media Control enterprise came into the picture and started its chart determination again on a weekly basis as the former, the company which is still responsible for the official German charts to date.
Digital-only releases came into existence on July 13, 2007 for online publication only, which also altered the way the sales figures were conducted up to that point. Consequently, chart positions would no longer be affected by the number of sold music downloads as before, but rather, they would be affected by the sales value of the sold product. Thus, the best-selling albums would not necessarily be the ones ending up in the number one position on the charts.
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