Streaming will be included it seems. Lets hope they still release raw sales data, because im not here for the UK being the one to force Mediatraffic to change the formula
Feels like just last week the OFC was insisting that both the Singles and Albums charts were purely sales charts and wouldn't be changing to a formula or adding streaming like the US charts.
Feels like just last week the OFC was insisting that both the Singles and Albums charts were purely sales charts and wouldn't be changing to a formula or adding streaming like the US charts.
How things change
Have you got a tweet / article where they said that? I wanna RT it and drag them.
Yet another 'albums' chart that should be renamed 'A Track Was Listened To Once So An Entire 14-Track Or However Many Tracks Are On The Album Was Bought'.
Just like the hideous 'new and improved' Billboard 200, this is going to be one huge, inflated mess. Whatever.
Granted it's from the Mirror (and got removed) but:
Quote:
Spotify and Google Play to be included in UK charts after streaming DOUBLES in 2014
Albums played on streaming services such as Spotify and Google Play are to be included in the UK charts for the first time in its 59-year history.
The weekly album chart is currently based on physical and digital sales. But music streaming in the UK has doubled over the past 12 months with almost 15bn songs streamed in 2014.
The first chart to include streams will be published on Sunday 1st March – the first chart after The Brits on February 25.
Streaming services including Napster, Music Unlimited and Xbox Music commonly charge subscribers a monthly fee to listen to unlimited tunes, although users aren’t able to download or own the songs.
Ed Sheeran’s X album has been streamed more than 200m times while Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour has had more than 140m streamings.
The UK singles charts updated to this system last July. Only audio streams will be recorded and not video streams on services such as YouTube.
Album streams will be counted by compiling the data from the 12 most-streamed tracks from each album. The top two most-streamed songs will be rounded down to the average of the next ten, with all songs being added together and then divided by 1,000.
The overall number will then be added to the physical and digital sales of the album.
Each track will have to be played for 30 seconds before it counts as one stream and only ten plays will be counted per user, per day to stop fans from deliberately cheating the system.
The 1,000 ratio is used to reflect the broad difference in value between a track stream and the price paid for an album. Chart bosses say this method will ensure hit singles do not ‘skew’ the performance of a parent album.
The Official Albums Chart has reflected the UK’s biggest albums every week since the first chart was published by Record Mirror 59 years ago.
Including streaming is just the logical choice. As album sales finally start to die off and singles sales decline even more from their peak, a transitional consumption chart that includes streaming is just the common-sense choice.
I like this idea, some of the albums in the last few years didn't have the best physical or digital sales but were streamed for filth. I hope they update album numbers for most of the albums that were streamed a lot in the last 3-4 years.
Following the extensive list of 99p Google Play albums & its significant impact on the charts, I wouldn't be surprised if they made it like the German charts where the weekly revenue of sales determines the position instead of the # of copies sold.
It's not only opened my eyes to a load of new artists but also I get the chance to judge the album before buying it, especially in this day and age where money is tight after paying bills etc.