In the week ending 25 January, only the top 10 singles sold more than 10,000 copies. And in the whole of the UK, just 400,000 singles were snapped up.

Michelle McManus needed to shift just 35,000 copies of her track to hold on to number one for a third week.

In the past, an artist needed to sell 100,000 singles to reach number one.

That happened a whopping 43 times in 1999.

But in the past year, only seven acts have shifted more than 100,000 copies in reaching the top of the charts.

At the other end of the scale, album sales are hitting an all-time high.

A record-breaking total of 121 million albums were sold in the UK last year.