YOUR WEEKLY MARKETSHARE SCORECARD

Q: How tight is the 2015 marketshare battle? A: Tighter than a gnat’s tuchus, as these handy-dandy graphics illustrate.

In frontline, Republic and CMG are just a kiss away from each other—Team Barnett keeping it thisclose despite the fact that Monte’s Army has the #2, 3 and 4 albums totaling 138k. In TEA, by contrast, Columbia slips past both to land in the catbird seat, somehow accomplishing this move without a Top 10 album and with just one Top 10 single. To figure out how this occurred would require the curious to chase a very long tail—and we’d rather watch the ACC tournament.

One other point of interest: The Top 5 labels in frontline and TEA this week are the same, with RCA and IGA also represented. What’s more, the same labels comprise the Top 5 in TEA for the first two months and one week of the year (see TEA TIME)—plus they were the Top 5 finishers in marketshare for 2013, indicating a degree of consistency among the power players.