Kent Music Report

Kent had spent a number of years previously working in the music industry at both EMI and Phonogram records and had developed the report initially as a hobby. The Kent Music Report was first released on a commercial drive basis in July 1974 and was offered for subscription. The report data was initially based solely on radio station charts from around the country, which were then amalgamated using a points based ranking system that Kent had developed. These radio station charts were compiled primarily using data collected from local record stores and, as such, were based primarily on retail sales (i.e. they were not airplay charts). In 1976, as funding from subscriptions grew, Kent himself started collecting sales data from retail stores to supplement the radio station charts (which were also based on sales data leaving the ARIA Charts as the only nationally recognised chart publication. ==Further chart work published by David Kent==

In 1993, David Kent published his Australian Chart Book 1970–1992. This was based on his chart data already published as the Kent Music Report from May 1974 onward. He specially "retro-calculated" charts based on state-based Australian radio station charts available to him dated before May 1974, to fill in the missing years (1970–1974). On this basis, he also put together Australian national charts from 1940 to 1969, published as Australian Chart Book 1940–1969 in 2005. Before 1949, radio station music charts in Australia were only available on a monthly basis, and this is reflected in his published data. Although ARIA published the official Australian National charts from 1988 onwards, Kent continued to calculate charts from this date, data from which were published in a third book in his Australian Chart Book series. ==See also==