The King set to hit Number 1 spot 

Elvis Presley looks set to be crowned Britain's 1000th No 1 in the music charts, but the king of rock'n'roll would be crying in the chapel over the recent slump in record sales.

Elvis is odds-on favourite to claim the coveted 1000th No 1 spot.

He already reigns over the British singles list with a record 19 top slots, a milestone he reached from beyond the grave with the reissue this month of Jailhouse Rock. He is poised to make it a round 20 with One Night, which first reached the summit in 1959.

But the impressive run masks a more worrying statistic for the record business - Jailhouse Rock secured the top slot by selling only 21,262 copies, the lowest No 1 tally ever and a fraction of the figure needed to reach the summit in the recent past.

A spokesman for the Official UK Charts Company said sales of singles tended to be low in January, when artists were reluctant to release major tracks after the Christmas rush when spending power among consumers was at its lowest.

But that cannot explain a slump in business since 1999, when legal and illegal downloading from the internet sent the sale of singles records spiralling lower.