Profile Martin Talbot Signed, sealed and delivered The Official Charts have been documenting music tastes for decades. With new platforms growing in prominence, chief executive Martin Talbot tells Liam Kay-McClean about how his job has become more complex but fascinating F or a first gig, Stevie Wonder at Earls Court, London, in 1984, takes some beating. Wonder reeled off hits including Superstition, Isnt She Lovely and Signed, Sealed, Delivered (Im Yours), as well as songs from his vast back catalogue. Martin Talbot, chief executive at the Official Charts Company, was in the audience that night for his first live concert, and has remained a huge fan of Wonder ever since, last watching him on stage in 2019, in Hyde Park. But it is that 1984 gig that remains one of his all-time favourites. To see an artist like that in his pomp, in the early 1980s and just coming out of his peak in the 1970s, was amazing, he says. I didnt grow up in a big city, so I wasnt fortunate enough to go to gigs constantly throughout my teens. Stevie Wonder had a massive impact on me at that age. Fast forward four decades and Talbot is very much a veteran of the music industry, albeit not in a recording capacity. After a three-year spell as a journalist at the Hackney Gazette in the late-1980s, Talbot moved into music journalism, focused on business-to-business (B2B) publications aimed at music sector professionals Fono and Music Week, both of which he edited, and a brief spell on the news desk at NME. I never really considered myself as a music journalist I was more a business journalist covering the music industry, Talbot says. I found working in business media more invigorating and more interesting as a journalist you could dig into more stuff; there were a lot more angles and things going on you could cover. There were various copyright tribunals, such as George Michael taking legal action against Sony Music there were always interesting stories to get your teeth into. Then, in 2007, came the chance to move to the UK Official Charts Company, first as managing director and then, in 2013, as chief executive. Its been the role of a lifetime to have the opportunity to manage an organisation that is a national institution, Talbot says. I am very aware that there are decades of history in the charts in the UK, and I have been around for only a small proportion. It is quite an honour to do that, particularly at a time when the industry has changed so much. Different tracks Despite working in and around the music industry for 20 years before moving to the Official Charts Company, Talbot accepts that his current role is quite a significant shift from that of working as a journalist. For anybody who makes the transition to running a business for the first time, it is a learning experience, he explains. Every day is a learning experience particularly as I have not grown from within the business, but come from outside of it. Music Week was a publisher of the Official Charts, so Talbot already had a business relationship with the Official Charts Company, and knew the team and its work, albeit not the day-to-day minutiae. When I came to the Official Charts Company, I already had experience of managing a team, he says. I had some really good mentors as well people I have worked for who Im still in touch with. I learned a lot from them about how to manage. Theres not a guide on how to do the job of chief executive you have to make it for yourself and make your own way of doing it. Id come from a journalistic background, and a lot of editors end up becoming publishers. Being a publisher of a magazine or website is not that dissimilar to being the chief executive of an organisation like the Official Charts Company. We create content and we commercialise it. Talbot says the key has been to surround himself with people who are experts in their field, and he tries to avoid too much hands-on management of the content side of the business. The Official Charts have been around since the 1950s and the Official Charts Company since the 1990s, but it was only in 2011 that the business adopted a logo and branding, and launched a website 18 Impact ISSUE 43 2023_pp18-21_Profile.indd 18 18/09/2023 12:02