to surround the Beatles' future, Independent Television News (ITN) filmed its Reporting '66 segment outside EMI Studios on 20 December; each of the band members was interviewed on arrival and assured ITN's reporter that they were not going to break up. Otherwise, the only television appearance that month by a member of the Beatles was when Lennon appeared in the Not Only ... But Also Christmas special. On Record Retailers LPs chart (later the UK Albums Chart), where all of the group's previous albums had held the top position for a minimum of seven weeks, the compilation reached number 7. On the national chart published by Melody Maker, it peaked at number 4. At this time, the Beatles came second in the World Vocal Group category in the NMEs annual readers poll, finishing with 5221 votes to the Beach Boys' 5321 – marking the only year between 1963 and 1969 that the Beatles failed to win in that category. Reports in Billboard and KRLA Beat attributed this result partly to the lack of new music from the band, and the fact that they had not toured the UK in 1966. According to author Jonathan Gould, Epstein's concern was the Monkees, whose rise influenced his decision to cede to EMI's demands and release "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" as a single in February 1967. According to Official Charts Company researcher Sharon Mawer, EMI had been expecting to achieve the "biggest album" of the year with the first compilation of the Beatles' greatest hits, but A Collection of Beatles Oldies proved to be "one of the biggest miscalculations of the pop charts". She concluded that fans were unwilling to pay for an LP that, aside from "Bad Boy", repackaged recordings they already owned and "The era of the successful Greatest Hits compilation was not yet with us." The album was released in Australia in 1968, after EMI's regional office had issued two greatest hits sets exclusive to the local market, in late 1966 and early 1967. There, the retrospectively compiled Kent Music Report recorded a chart peak for A Collection of Beatles Oldies of number 7. The album returned to the UK chart on several occasions in the early 1970s, including placing at number 32 in April 1970 and number 38 in July 1972. Critical reception Among contemporary reviews, Tracks commented that the album "ought to give some indication of how