CHUM Chart - History

History

The chart debuted on May 27, 1957, under the name CHUM's Weekly Hit Parade. The CHUM Chart name was adopted in 1961.

The chart was published for 1,512 consecutive weeks, and had 694 different No. 1 songs over the course of its original run. Its first No. 1 single was Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up", and its final No. 1 was Madonna's "Live to Tell".

From its inception until 1975, each week's CHUM Chart was published in a brochure format, with additional features promoting the station and its personalities. It was distributed to record stores and music venues across the city and throughout the station's listening area in Southern Ontario. In 1975, the brochure was discontinued, and each week's chart was instead published in the entertainment section of the Toronto Star. Mike Myers, Gordon Lightfoot, Dick Clark and Dave Thomas all reportedly own collections of CHUM Charts.

For the first 26 weeks in 1957, the chart published full information only for the top 10, listing only song titles for the remainder of the chart. Because CHUM's call letters were 1050, the ton TEN hits were printed in large, boldface type, with the rest of the top FIFTY following in smaller type. On November 25, 1957, the chart began publishing information on all listed songs. In 1959, the chart briefly added a Top 10 albums list, which was discontinued in 1960, revived in 1963 and discontinued again in 1967.

Author Ron Hall published The CHUM Chart Book (ISBN 0920325157) in 1983, listing every song that had appeared in the CHUM Charts to that point. Following the discontinuation of the chart, he published an updated edition in 1990 listing every charted song and profiling the history of the chart. The final chart, for the week of June 14, 1986, was never published until Hall's 1990 book. A commemorative list of all the chart's number one songs was also published in poster format by CHUM in 2007 to commemorate the station's 50th anniversary.