From March 1966 New Zealand Listener magazine published a national Top 20 that is sometimes cited as the first “official” NZ chart. (As far as I can see, it was no more official than the "official Top 40" of Melbourne radio station 3UZ.)
The Listener chart was based around coupons mailed in by readers who filled it out with their five current favourite songs.
The ad in the Listener on 18 March 1966 went like this:
INTRODUCING
THE N.Z. HIT PARADE
Based on a Nationwide Voting Poll
YOU CHOOSE THE HITS!
Complete the coupon below and you take part in choosing
New Zealand’s Top Twenty.
It included only an unnumbered list of "leading discs of the moment" for inspiration, but the next edition on 25 March published THE N.Z. HIT PARADE, with A Must To Avoid by Herman's Hermits topping the Top 20, leading a list of exclusively British and American artists:
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| NZ issue, NZ hit (discogs.com) |
I-cannot-say-whether the readers' poll was the only source of data for the chart, but I suspect that might be so. Whatever the truth, NZ chart compiler Dean Scapolo believes that it was “not a good indicator” of what was actually selling. From April 1970 the Listener did use sales figures, but its charts were retired with the coming of official music industry charts in May 1975.
Warwick Freeman, another compiler, explains that before March 1966 when the Listener chart appeared, New Zealanders relied on local radio stations, television, record stores and other sources who compiled their own charts. A few of these charts were published, and in many cases lost, but others were simply written down in scrapbooks by keen listeners as the countdown was played on the radio or TV.
Another often-cited chart from before March 1966 was the Lever Hit Parade, a Top 8 that was sponsored by a detergent company, compiled by an advertising company, and used by NZ’s state-owned commercial radio stations. Although its methods are not known it was not sales based and probably used some kind of polling. There was also a genuinely sales-based chart published in Playdate magazine but for only a couple of months in 1960.
As in Australia, retrospectively compiled NZ charts have now been published. Dean Scapolo’s Complete New Zealand Music Charts 1966 to 1996 begins with the Listener’s charts in March 1966. Warwick Freeman in New Zealand Top 20 Singles of the Sixties has additionally used a variety of sources from before March 1966 to compile chart listings for the whole decade.
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Sources: 1. Flavour of New Zealand’s feature on NZ charts 2. Scapolo’s and Freeman’s chart books. 3. Listener archives at Papers Past (National Library of NZ).
Read more about retrospective charts at my blogpost Toppermost of the poppermost: the charts.
