Ant and Dec increase Number 1 race with Let's Get Ready To Rhumble

According to today’s Official Charts Company sales data, Ant and Dec have increased their lead in the race to this week’s Official Number 1 single.

This is really happening: ‘90s Geordie pop heroes PJ and Duncan AKA Ant and Dec have increased their lead overnight in the race to this week’s Official Number 1 single.

Last Saturday night (March 23) Ant and Dec were joined on their ITV show, Saturday Night Takeaway by Blue, Atomic Kitten and 5ive, and were goaded into resurrecting their PJ and Duncan alter egos for a rendition of Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble.

Thousands of viewers immediately downloaded the track and the Official Charts Company can today confirm that in the last 72 hours Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble has sold nearly 46,000 copies; that’s already 35% of what it had previously sold in its entire 19 year existence!

The duo’s 1994 Number 9 hit, Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble, is currently outselling its closest competitors, P!nk FT Nate Ruess’ Just Give Me A Reason (2) and reigning chart princesses The Saturdays FT Sean Paul’s What About Us? (3), by more than 10,000 copies. Though they are by no means home and dry yet, if Ant and Dec CAN maintain their current momentum for the rest of this week, two decades after its original release and at the age of 37, the pair will score their first ever Official Number 1 smash!

Before becoming TV presenters, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly found fame in Newcastle-based BBC drama Byker Grove in the late ‘80s as the characters PJ and Duncan. The pair adopted these monikers for their subsequent pop career which resulted in 14 Top 40 singles. 

Speaking to Chris Evans on his Radio 2 breakfast show yesterday, Ant revealed that he and Dec will be donating all the profits from the single to the children’s charity they’re patrons of, Childline.

"Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble kinda changed everything for us,” he said. “I never thought we'd be performing it 19 years later on a Saturday night TV show! People are still buying the track, so we've just decided that any money we make out of it will be put towards Childline.”

New Entries And High Climbers

While Ant and Dec are headed for their first Number 1 single, Charlie Brown is on course for his first ever Top 10 hit. The London-based singer / songwriter scores the highest new entry on today’s Official Singles Chart Update with On My Way, which is new in at Number 7.

Calvin Harris is set to clock up his eighth Top 40 hit from his latest album, 18 Months, this weekend. I Need Your Love FT Ellie Goulding climbs six places to enter the midweekTop 40 at Number 35. Britain's Got Talent 2012 semi-finalists The Mend complete this week’s new entries, with debut release Where Were You (Number 37).

Highest climber of the week so far is Pitbull’s Feel This Moment FT Christina Aguilera, up 14 places from Number 27 to Number 13, while Rihanna’s Diamonds climbs 12 places to Number 36.

And finally, after a staggering 28 weeks, Psy’s Gangnam Style could finally drop out of the Top 40. The track, which peaked at Number 1 last September, is just one of 130 tracks in chart history to sell over a million copies in the UK. Gangnam Style falls 10 places to Number 49 on today’s Official Chart Update.

The Official Singles Chart Update Top 40 is as follows:

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