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Yesterday, for the first time in UK history, the Official UK Singles Chart was based on a combination of both CD sales and digital downloads. Up until now the Singles Chart has been entirely based on sales of CD singles in shops, but in an attempt to increase interest in an increasingly declining market the Official UK Charts Company decided to start including sales of digital downloads from a number of websites including iTunes, Napster and HMV. This has effectively doubled the singles market with a total of 383,000 downloads sold last week compared with 393,000 CD singles sold.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is pleased with the move, saying "By bringing new people back into the singles market, the addition of downloads by definition makes it more representative." Indeed the Singles chart will now reflect the musical tastes of a much broader audience. Research has shown that CD singles are mainly bought by teenage girls, whilst digital downloads are mainly bought by teenage and twenty-something males. Combining those two markets is certainly more representative, but also leads to some potential problems.

The average CD single costs £3.99 in a record shop like HMV or Virign, but the average digital download is about 79p. Some industry experts have predicted this will lead to large record companies attempting to fix the charts. A song could be boosted up the charts if a record company bought, for example, an extra 10,000 copies of the single. In a CD only chart, that would cost £40,000 but with the inclusion of downloads in the chart the same outcome could be achieved with just £8000. Spending that amount could be a very sound investment for a major label intent on getting their artist at number 1. The Official UK Charts Company says it will try to stop chart fixing by looking out for the same credit card buying multiple copies of the same song, but even they must admit that the opportunity is there to be exploited.

So what does all this mean for Delirious? Some independent record labels, of which Delirious' own Furious? Records is an example, have complained they cannot get their music onto major download services - particularly iTunes, which dominates the market. This puts them at a clear disadvantage. Another downside of the new chart is that currently only downloadable songs that are also available on CD will be included in the chart. This means if Delirious? released a new mp3-only single, avoiding the cost and difficulties of a normal CD single, it still won't be included in the official singles chart. Apparently rules like this are likely to change in the coming months as the chart organisers investigate how successful the new chart is. In the meantime some artists have managed to get around the rule by releasing a limited edition CD single, just 300 copies, and selling the majority of copies online.

In the long term, this could be very advantageous to Delirious? Releasing singles has long been established as the best way to get your music heard by the masses and into the secular market. But even in their single selling heyday, Delirious? struggled to make a major impact on the chart. The highlight being See The Star which reached number 16 back in 1999. More recently the band have had to abandon their strategy of releasing singles because it worked out far too costly. Instead they turned to giving songs away as mp3's.

The way the charts are heading now, there has to be a strong possibility that we may yet see a Delirious? song in the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart - an ambition many fans (myself included) have held for Delirious? for a number of years.