Charts Plus

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Charts Plus is a weekly newsletter about the UK music charts. It was first published in September 2001 and was established to record the official music chart information in the United Kingdom, as compiled by The Official UK Charts Company.

Its publication began after Hit Music ceased publication in May 2001. It was established to be totally independent of Music Week. Initially it covered:

The UK Singles Chart, publishing the Top 75 and a compressed version of numbers 76-200 (the only place where these lower positions are published)
The UK Albums Chart up to number 200
The Compilations Chart top 50

It also included a New Entries Spotlight on all new top 200 singles, and a Year to Date collection of all the current year's Top 200 albums and singles.

Since then, it has expanded to include the BPI silver, gold or platinum sales awards, predictions of the success of forthcoming releases, a Budget Albums Top 50, an Airplay Top 100, the Welsh Chart, a Scottish Chart and Downloads Top 40. It also publishes genre specific charts, for Indie, Dance, Rock and R & B.

Its original charts have also been modified, with the Singles Chart now expanded to a full Top 250, and the Year to Date feature scrapped. Despite being independent of the charts companies, it effectively acts as the UK's official chart publication, in a similar manner to Billboard in the United States of America.