THE singles music chart will include music download sales within "the next few weeks".

The chart, which has been run for 50 years in the UK, counting down sales of music singles in shops, has shunned the booming market in music downloads until now.

However, an announcement is expected "imminently" on including download sales into the Top 40 chart.

James Gillespie of the UK Official Chart Company (OCC), which compiles the chart, said:

"We will be making an announcement about including internet downloads later this year, in the next few weeks - it will be a compilation of sales and downloads.

"Including internet downloads in the singles chart is something we have been planning for some time now, but the preparation is a big job."

Downloading music has seen a huge boom since the end of 2004 when iPods and MP3 players were the musthave gifts for Christmas.

Downloads overtook physical singles sales in December for the first time, with 312,000 tracks bought online compared with 282,000 over the counter.

Figures from last week show the market has grown even further, with 353,000 online singles sales.

The OCC began recording online music sales in September last year. Gillespie said the same mechanism used to compile the download chart will be used to amalgamate the two charts into a new Top 40.

"We have a daily feed from Napster, iTunes and key artists' sites already for our download chart launched last year", he said. "It is important that people have faith in our figures and that they are accurate, and we are trialing the combined chart at the moment."

The OCC has chosen to include download sales over radio airplay charts which are also used to measure popularity of material by commercial radio stations.

The singles chart has become the key measurement of success in the UK music business since it was launched in 1952, and is a cornerstone of the BBC Radio 1 schedule, which broadcasts the chart on Sunday afternoons.

Ian Whitfield, a spokesman for EMI, said of the prospect of a new chart: "It is hugely positive from our point of view as there is a generation dedicated to their computer and digital technology and we want the chart to keep up with that."

Digital music sellers also welcomed the change. Adam Howarth of Napster, which has 270,000 subscribers in the UK and US, said the new Top 40 was badly needed. "It is essential to include downloads in the charts as their purpose is to reflect customer traffic.

There has been a lot of doom and gloom about the state of the industry, but digital services have revived interest, along with some great new British talent."

One question mark over the new chart is the time that record companies will now take to release singles in CD single format after they have been made available to buy online - at the moment, downloads are put up for sale when radio stations receive preview copies of the tunes to avoid eager fans swapping them illegally, with up to six weeks elapsing before they can be bought in stores.

Because only physical sales have been counted in the traditional chart it allowed record companies to vie for the all important "straight in at number one" slot. But now analysts say that trend may abruptly end, with major starts entering the chart at a low position from gradual download sales and not climbing as far as the top 10 until the physical single is available.

Paul Williams, of industry magazine Music Week, said:

"The download chart behaves like the chart of the old days - where new entries went in low and climbed."

Music bible NME has stopped reviewing CD singles on their merit altogether - reviewer Mark Beaumont said the chart was becoming "ridiculous". He said the recent limited edition Elvis singles made "a mockery of what the chart is there for". He also pointed out that unless the majority of artist and download sites are counted, the new chart will have no credibility.

Some 21 official sites are included in the chart, including iTunes, Tesco and Napster.

However, traditional high street stores claimed this weekend that the competition from online music sales will not dull consumers' appetite for buying music from shops.

Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said customers still want to own the music they enjoy. "The record labels have created a rod for their own backs - singles are hyped up to eight weeks in advance, so there is fatigue [when they hit stores].

"Album sales were up 2.4-per cent last year and these figures contradict early predictions by some on the negative effect of the internet. There is a real culture in the UK and Ireland where people enjoy shopping for music and owning a library."