Charts Were Dropped on Accuracy Concerns

Scott Collins notes in his article “Video Vexation” [July 14] on VideoScan [a provider of data on the sales of videocassettes] that Video Store magazine was “successfully pressured . . . to drop the weekly VideoScan sales chart” due to pressure from studios who were “protective of [this] very important revenue stream” [in the words of one analyst].

As the publisher of Video Store magazine at this time, I made the decision to drop these charts from our magazine. Yes, we were under serious pressure from the studios regarding the accuracy of the charts. As the video industry’s leading provider of valid and unbiased research, we held this pressure off for many months as we attempted to help VideoScan correct its methodology and weighting system.

When it became clear to us that the charts were not accurate and could not be made to be more accurate without adding the results of a substantial number of retailers not in the VideoScan database, we could no longer in good faith defend these charts by running them in our magazine. That may have constituted a victory for a few studio executives, but was really the result of our own evaluation that we could not longer place our reputation on the line for numbers we could not trust.

DAVID ALLEN SHAW

Santa Ana