The Official Singles Chart is to include audio streams for the first time from next month (July), the Official Charts Company can confirm today.
The first Official Singles Chart to incorporate streams will be unveiled from 4-7pm on Sunday July 6 by BBC Radio 1, as the nation’s favourite rundown is adjusted to reflect the growing popularity of streaming. The full Top 100 will be published on OfficialCharts.com at 7pm.
The move, supported by the UK music industry, follows an explosion in streaming in the UK with the total number of weekly audio streams selected by music fans growing from 100 million a week in January 2013 to 200 million a week in January 2014 to up to 260 million currently.
Daft Punk’s Get Lucky became the first track to be streamed 1 million times in a week last spring, but 2014 has already seen 9 tracks generate more than 1 million streams in a single week, including two tracks passing the 1.5 million weekly barrier - Rather Be by Clean Bandit and Waves by Mr Probz.
The move to include streams in the Official Singles Chart was made possible by the agreement of on-demand audio streaming services including Spotify, Deezer, Napster, O2 Tracks, Xbox Music and Music Unlimited and rara (powered by Omnifone), all members of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), co-owners of the Official Charts Company, to supply weekly streaming data. To reflect the difference in weight between streaming and purchasing, 100 streams will count as equivalent to 1 single (download or physical single) in the chart compilation process.
Bastille have recorded a video message on behalf of the Official Charts Company about today’s announcement. Their track Pompeii has been confirmed as the UK’s most streamed track of all time, check it out below.
In a forthcoming full interview on OfficialCharts.com Bastille front man Dan Smith comments: “Hearing Pompeii has had over 26 million streams is amazing and completely weird and we’re really really happy. I think streaming going into the chart is definitely a good thing. I think for the charts to be fair it has to reflect how people digest music.
In parallel with the Official Charts announcement BPI certifications issued for singles achieving Silver (200,000 unit equivalents), Gold (400,000) and Platinum (600,000) status, will incorporate audio stream data from the same time.
The BPI Certified Awards Programme will adopt the same approach and criteria that the Official Charts are using to calculate how any streams contribute to a recording's sales performance.
The move to include streams in the Certified Awards data for Singles follows the huge surge in streaming by music consumers in recent months and over the past year - in 2013 alone there were 7.4 billion streams, up 100 percent on 2012, and the figure for 2014 is expected to double again.
