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Posted by: vidcapper 7th January 2015, 06:33 AM

There seems to be disagreement on this, as songs that pass 1m thanks to streams seem to be considered illegitimate in some quarters.

This seems odd to me, as when downloads were first added, people seemed to have no problem in counting *them* towards overall totals, even though older songs didn't have the benefit of them on original release - just as is the case for older songs with streaming now.

Posted by: Jay ジ 7th January 2015, 07:03 AM

I think the term "million sellers" should be updated somehow to reflect the fact that it's not purely all about sales anymore. Although you could argue that the definition of what a sale actually is nowadays has changed, considering how streaming data is being used for chart purposes.

When songs have passed 200k/400k/600k recently, they're still easily being regarded as having gone silver, gold and platinum respectively, even though they've not *sold* that amount to reach those certification levels. Therefore it's a bit odd that we're still being a bit "old fashioned" about million sellers and not yet recognising a song which has passed a million in the modern day sense. Only considering a song as being worthy of mentioning in terms of a million after it's sold a million is going to become more and more outdated as time passes, if streaming takes further precedence.

It's all a problem with terminology and I think it just needs to be changed asap. We might get to the stage where no song reaches a million sales any more, but songs could more easily become "a million *insert word here*" thanks to streaming.

I do think the OCC should continue to keep track of when a song has sold a million copies for the foreseeable future, but I think they (and we) should start thinking of songs that got there with sales + streaming as being a notable achievement too.

Posted by: Eric_Blob 7th January 2015, 09:35 AM

I don't know. If million sellers continue to be sales only, there aren't going to be a whole lot in the future. Sales are still high enough that the biggest hits can sell a million, but in a few years it won't be happening.

On the other hand, if you include streaming, it'll be easier than ever for songs to get a million.

Posted by: J▼hnkm 7th January 2015, 09:38 AM

Personally I don't think so, as the very name is 'sellers', BUT in the interest of the charts being reflective of what is popular I can accept it, provided we still get a sales only list at some point too.

Posted by: Little_Boyo 7th January 2015, 09:48 AM

Your options seem to contradict the original question but no i dont think streams should count at all.

Posted by: Joe. 7th January 2015, 10:08 AM

I don't really mind.

But I do think it's a bit messy and confusing that certifications include streams and million sellers don't. It's a bit annoying and they should just stick to one of the two and make it a bit more cohesive.

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 7th January 2015, 10:12 AM

The clue is in the name, guys.

Million SELLERS. Songs that sell a million SALES.



Streaming does not sell, because you do not buy

Posted by: popchartfreak 7th January 2015, 10:15 AM

streaming is not "sales" it's an arbitrary definition of a sale which may change with time, which would mean the million sellers with streaming would also need messy alteration if it changes in the future (weighting of sales could go up or down). For the purposes of charts it doesnt really matter as there are separate streaming and sales charts with actual figures for both, and the combined chart is just a snapshot of how they view the ratio at a given moment (I personally think that 12% of the market for streaming is WAY over-weighted for the chart, but thats a different issue). As long as there continues to be a reasonable argument of what the weighting should be (which will be until the day downloads stop forever) there is no such fixed thing as a "sale" for streaming, so counting it for million-sellers would just mess up the whole list before too long.

Actual sales only!

Posted by: torresgirl 7th January 2015, 10:41 AM

I don't think streams should count on the chart at all but if they are going to include them as "sales" on the weekly charts they should be included in the overall sales of a song so yes streams should be included. Its a mess otherwise.

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 7th January 2015, 10:52 AM

If they have it including streaming they will have to change the name...

Million what?

Posted by: tgl92 7th January 2015, 12:06 PM

Seems stupid to count them for weekly sales but not for overall sales

Posted by: truly talented 7th January 2015, 12:10 PM

I voted no but if they are to be included a breakdown should be shown. For me million selling downloads aren't in the same league as million physical sellers either.

Posted by: Graham A 7th January 2015, 01:03 PM

It's stupid to count them for weekly sales too!
Streaming is a listen to track which nobody owns. People listen to the million sellers all the time from the past. But those listened to where not recorded. What makes it worse for streaming is that you don't even have to listen to all the track, so the contribution could be to sales could be just a casual person listening to the song because it's popular, then finding out they don't like it!
However if you fork out money for a record you probably do like it, hence why in the past people bought records in huge numbers and the term "a million seller" was born. It stood out from the rest of the records that were on sale and was a special achievement. However does this still apply to a million seller?

The status of the million seller has been somewhat downgraded in the past few years since downloads came along. Since downloads are cheaper than the records prior to the introduction of the format. So a record that sold 1 million copies precisely. In the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's made more money than a download record selling the same. Also before downloads, records were deleted so a record selling a huge amount couldn't stay in the shops long and often the record company restricted sending copies out of the big sellers to open up the market for new tracks. This changed with the download market and records now continue to sell. This means that over a long time even a modest selling record in the day can still have the tag "million seller" applied to it.

However streaming is even worse for paying out and so a 1 million stream of even allowed streams is as low or lower than the download, so the status of the term "million seller" become pointless.

Posted by: slowdown73 7th January 2015, 01:21 PM

I think streams should be included as its a new trend in the way people are accessing music. Streaming figures are included in calculating the weekly sales positions on the charts and in doing so, the OCC use a sale calculation of 100 streams to 1 unit sale. So why not include them in calculating sales figures overall? People argue that if someone has streamed a song then they don't physically own the product but in streaming the track they have still paid a subscription fee in order to enable them to listen to the song.

Posted by: truly talented 7th January 2015, 01:23 PM

Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.

Posted by: slowdown73 7th January 2015, 01:36 PM

QUOTE(Graham A @ Jan 7 2015, 01:03 PM)

It's stupid to count them for weekly sales too!
Streaming is a listen to track which nobody owns. People listen to the million sellers all the time from the past. But those listened to where not recorded. What makes it worse for streaming is that you don't even have to listen to all the track, so the contribution could be to sales could be just a casual person listening to the song because it's popular, then finding out they don't like it!
However if you fork out money for a record you probably do like it, hence why in the past people bought records in huge numbers and the term "a million seller" was born. It stood out from the rest of the records that were on sale and was a special achievement. However does this still apply to a million seller?

The status of the million seller has been somewhat downgraded in the past few years since downloads came along. Since downloads are cheaper than the records prior to the introduction of the format. So a record that sold 1 million copies precisely. In the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's made more money than a download record selling the same. Also before downloads, records were deleted so a record selling a huge amount couldn't stay in the shops long and often the record company restricted sending copies out of the big sellers to open up the market for new tracks. This changed with the download market and records now continue to sell. This means that over a long time even a modest selling record in the day can still have the tag "million seller" applied to it.

However streaming is even worse for paying out and so a 1 million stream of even allowed streams is as low or lower than the download, so the status of the term "million seller" become pointless.


People still have to pay a subscription fee in order to listen to a track which is counted as streaming data and also the OCC use a much lower calculation of 100 streams per unit of sale which effectively reduces significantly the effect of possible bias in the charts caused by people just skipping through a track. Singles sales figures should also accurately reflect the way the charts are calculated and reflect changes in the way people access music whether it be downloading or streaming.

Posted by: SceneofSIXCrimes 7th January 2015, 01:53 PM

It should be sales only. Including streaming points basically invalidates the whole point of a million-seller.

Posted by: JosephStyles 7th January 2015, 03:36 PM

Streaming should absolutely count IMO. It's obviously being seen as the way forward like downloads were, obviously they're quite different as you're not actually buying things with streaming but it still counts to the chart and it's quite confusing as the OCC are having one rule for this, and one rule for that, and it's hard to know what counts to what. I think the main list should include streams but a side list can be the sales-only million sellers.

Posted by: liamk97 7th January 2015, 03:40 PM

Precisely! It's annoying to see the amount of people saying "clue's in the name: million sellers" when all that needs doing is the terminology changing.

I do agree that the OCC should keep us informed on how songs are selling and show us sales-only million sellers but if the chart is including sales and streams, then 100% this should be the same when it comes to "million chart unit sellers" or whatever they decide to change the name to.


Not necessarily if sales keep going down - it won't be like it is at the moment where both sales and streams are doing well in 'x' years time.

Posted by: popchartfreak 7th January 2015, 04:37 PM

such support for streaming data!

Why not just have an all-time chart for streaming totals? It's pure, forever, nothing else can impact on it, and it's a level playing-field for all from 2014 to the end of streaming (presumably forever). Fave oldies will gradually go up the chart eventually. Why does nobody want this? Cos it's boring, that's why! Nobody cares how many times a record has been listened to, so why should they care if that is or isn't converted into "sales".

Illogical...captain!

Posted by: AcerBen 7th January 2015, 05:40 PM

For the average music lover, streaming is far more convenient than downloading. Why should the tastes of these people be ignored?

Download figures are decreasing and will continue to do so. I expect within 5 years we'll be back down to 20,000 sales for a #1, if not even less. What is the point of the official chart if it doesn't reflect popularity? Do they have to wait for everyone to stop downloading and the chart to become totally irrelevant before you'd even consider adding streams to be necessary?

A song that is streamed 1 million times is clearly more popular than a single that sells 10,000 copies to a small fanbase.

Posted by: Envoirment 7th January 2015, 05:53 PM

I don't think streams should be included in million-sellers. It would be unfair to a lot of songs that charted before streaming was implemented in the charts and not give a true representations of the sales of songs if streaming was included (songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Someone Like You", "I Gotta Feeling" and many others would likely have gained a lot more sales had streaming been implemented much earlier).

P.S: I know streaming wasn't around during the original runs of "Bohemian Rhapsody", but like many classic acts, Queen still gets quite a lot of streams which have added up over the years.

Posted by: Jester 7th January 2015, 06:44 PM

Sales are decreasing and the market for downloads seems to be shrinking. Time to move with the times and have combined million sellers.

Posted by: highlander69 7th January 2015, 07:49 PM

I'm still curious as to how streaming is calculated. I thought, originally, you only had to play a song for at least 30 seconds for the stream to count! This seems wrong to me. For a stream to count, the full duration of the song should be a must.
I don't think streaming should count towards million 'sellers'.

Posted by: liamk97 7th January 2015, 07:50 PM

I've altered the title/question of this thread otherwise the poll is really confusing! People may have selected "yes" to should million sellers be sales-only without realising that "yes" meant "yes, streaming should count".

Posted by: liamk97 7th January 2015, 07:52 PM

But what would happen if someone listened to pretty much the whole song apart from the last two seconds when they've pressed play for another song?

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 7th January 2015, 07:53 PM

Is there a source to confirm this rather peculiar theory?

I know last.fm requires 50% play to scrobble...

Posted by: Eth▲n 7th January 2015, 08:05 PM

Yes, absolutely! You've got to move with the times!

I fully expect the OCC to relaunch the million 'sellers' list at some point in the near future to include streaming data and the readjusted sales for the 1994-1998 period~

Posted by: MrJules 7th January 2015, 08:43 PM

I voted no but I do agree it's a very difficult issue. I guess my main problem is how arbitrary setting a particular number of streams as equivalent to 1 sale is - whether you choose 100 or any other number. Steaming and buying music are two very different things - yes there are differences between selling 1 million CDs 15 years ago and 1 million downloads today but at least they fundamentally represent the same activity.

I think there should be an official streaming chart and an official sales chart and they should be kept completely separate. I'm not actually convinced sales will keep dropping off because whereas downloads were more or less a perfect substitute for CDs, streaming isn't a perfect substitute for owning a song. I still want to buy my music because I hate the thought that it could be taken away if I was effectively renting it (eg the Taylor Swift saga).

However if in 5 years time the weekly sales chart Number 1s were only selling 20K it might be the case that the streaming chart was the one everyone cared about. There also might be a list of 100 million streaming songs and this might be seen as the new milestone in popularity. I wouldn't have a problem with any of that - it's just that I don't like having a chart that combines two things which I see as fundamentally incompatible.

Posted by: Graham A 8th January 2015, 01:47 AM

Streaming should not have been introduced to the sales chart. It's a sales chart not what people listen to. If the sales chart doesn't reflect what music people are enjoying then you simply switch to streaming totally. Then leave the sales chart to die a slow death, even to those with a small fanbase. Predictions based on figures from the present however don't have much bases in fact. The future is very difficult to predict. Many people have been caught out in the past on all sorts of issues, because they base future predictions on current knowledge. To give some examples. You might recall a prediction about 1999. Back in the early 1980's a TV presenter tried to work out what the world would be like in 1999. He used an astrological computer to get information, as the original prediction about 1999 was based on Astrology. It came up with a bad disease spreading around the world centred on Africa. The conclusion at the time was due to the cold war and germ warfare. That is the kind of thing you get working with statistics and the straight line approach that many people have from modern education about future events. In reality the computer simply predicted AIDS as nobody ever thought that the cold war could end like it did.
This is not an isolated thing; back in the 1st Century an astrological event was predicted as a birth of a King. Because that's what they thought at that time. Instead it was the birth of the Christen religion.

Alternatives to your view that streaming will continue to grow could depend on technological changes, musicians attitudes to how they get paid and loads of other factors. The main reason that streaming was introduced to the chart was to stop the BBC Radio One top 40 looking like the iTunes chart for the week. The BBC not liking a chart that looked like a commercial company and being one of the main funders of the said chart. Popularity had little to do with such actions. A more popular chart would have included the views from the video sites such as YouTube, but the BBC would have objected to them being included.

If a song is only bought by a 10,000 strong fanbase then it would not join the million seller lists for the most popular records in the UK. And the million seller list would remain static. But there is nothing wrong with the list remaining static.

However there is something wrong with adding a record that has been listened to a million times. For as I say the people only have to listen for a short period of time and you can do that if some site offers a preview of the top 40 records each week. With loads of people going down the top records, play 30 seconds of each record and occasionally playing in full the ones they like. If 10,000 people do that, you will have million sellers in a few weeks especially if the records hang around the top 40 like they do now. Because every top 40 record counted not the ones that people just played in full. You only have to look at the ridicules figures for streams of records that show in the current charts to see that counting them towards the million sellers list is stupid. Then you have to take into account that people listening to these records in some case have not even forked out any cash at all to do so. In which case the record's revenue (taken into account to qualify for the chart) has come from adverts from the likes of Cola companies. None of the previous records that have made the million sellers got there from commercial firms adverts, at least not directly.
The whole idea of popular music is to listen to it. That's why people make it. They don't want it to be forgot about next day. Just because for the first time in history we can actually count the people listening to the music doesn't mean they should add that to those where the public of the past spent a great deal of money buying the records that they wanted to listen to.

Posted by: Jay ジ 8th January 2015, 04:01 AM

I'm not sure whether you know all the OCC rules regarding streaming, apologies if you do, but just to clarify...

An individual is only able to contribute 10 streams of a song per day towards the charts - any more than 10 streams within that day aren't counted. That works out as a maximum of 0.1 sales per day, and 0.7 sales/70 streams per week, per person. Therefore 10,000 people listening to the same song the maximum number of times per day (which would be 700,000 for the whole week between them all) would only end up contributing 7,000 units to be added to a song's weekly sales total for that chart week. I assume a lot of people won't actually stream the same song 10 times a day all week, so it'll be the accumulation of many more people that are making up the total streaming units.

Also this isn't about "adding a record that has been listened to a million times". Most hit songs achieve streams considerably more than 1 million. 1 million streams (the streams that are actually counted) equates to just 10,000 units. Uptown Funk had (presumably just eligible) streams of 2.56 million last week alone, contributing 25,551 additional units to his weekly figure.

Sorry if I misunderstood or missed the point of what you were saying, but I don't think the situation with streaming is quite as rash as you're making it out to be! It's not something that's easily manipulated, it's just reflecting popularity. The 30 seconds things isn't ideal, but there's probably a lot of people who don't listen to a song the whole way through to the moment a next song begins. I think maybe 100 seconds would be more reflective that a person has actually kept this song playing and listened to it all.

By the way, if anything I've written above is actually incorrect information re: streaming rules, then I apologise in advance - but that's my understanding of it at least.

~

All in all this discussions reminds me of 2005, when downloads were added to the charts. There was a lot of resistance back then - "surely a download isn't equivalent to a physical sale" etc. 10 years on and the concept of physical singles sales making up the bulk of the chart is (sadly) a distant memory. Who knows what will happen in the next 10 years? We could be reminiscing about the days when people actually paid money to download song files. The concept of the singles chart being based on what people are spending their cash is most likely going to stop being the main definition of what the chart is all about, and instead it'll be about listens. Therefore I think as time passes, we need to try and embrace/accept streaming data more and more, if we're going to continue following the UK charts. The singles chart being 100% sales based is over, so looking to the past and feeling aggrieved about "the public of the past spending a great deal of money buying the records they wanted to listen to" is a bit of a moot point now. Buying habits changed over the years, from format to format, but now we're experiencing a transition where people are changing the way they access music altogether.

If a song passes a million in 2015 with a fairly significant contribution from streaming, that's just a sign of the times & I think it should really be accepted as a "million" achievement. Its popularity was such that it undoubtedly sold a lot of downloads, but it was also streamed a hell of a lot too.

I think it's quite curious that the OCC made the big decision of including streaming data in to the weekly charts, but are still quite reluctant to state what a particular song's overall figure is with sales & streams combined... they're still reporting song totals with just sales figures, even the ones no where near a million. It's strange that they want these streaming units to contribute to the sales of songs in the weekly charts, making them higher, but they don't want those streams to be recognised in a song's actual total, the accumulation of those weekly figures. Therefore at the moment it seems like they're more concerned about what the weekly sales look like, rather than embracing streaming as a factor in a song's overall total. I think as time goes by they may need to alter this approach to what they regard as being totals.

Ella's 'Ghost' is on course to achieve a million units this week, but it probably won't pass a million purely on sales for a very long time to come. (I actually have no idea how much it's purely sold, but I assume it could have well over 100,000 of its total come from streams). I assume the OCC won't pass comment on it passing a million units. I don't think they have with Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' either, although Music Week are more keen to point out million "unit" sellers.

Posted by: Mateja 8th January 2015, 10:31 AM

No, I don't think streaming should count towards million sellers. However, they should start a new category for songs that pass 100 million streams or something.

Posted by: ThePensmith 8th January 2015, 11:06 AM

I did protest a bit about streaming being added to official 'sales' nearly a year ago. I'm still not entirely sure how streaming a song ad infinitum for 100 times a day counts as a sale.

But really, when it comes down to it - what is the point? Obviously streaming isn't going to go away as a 'format' if you will now, and it's clear the OCC have taken this on board earlier than they did with downloading - and perhaps wisely so too to avoid the same sales slump the charts suffered in that weird 2003-7 period.

Even I use a premium account on Blinkbox Music now, albeit primarily to listen to old music (interestingly, can someone clarify if streams from this count towards sales?) to the tune of £1 a week. The old saying is true...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Posted by: Eric_Blob 8th January 2015, 11:55 AM

This is debatable imo. Spotify was already pretty big and growing fast in 2010 (this is when I first started to use it) and streaming only got added to the charts in 2014.

I think it was the sales decline late 2013 that made the OCC add streaming (maybe that and also other charts around the world starting to include it). I reckon of sales had carried on increasing they still wouldn't have included it yet, but the sales decline made them realize streaming is really taking over.

Posted by: Hadji 8th January 2015, 01:02 PM

If people complained to OCC about streaming slowing down the singles chart like they complained about compilations slowing down the album chart, they might remove it

Posted by: fiesta 8th January 2015, 01:36 PM

I think each different 'sale' (Streams, downloads, physical) should be counted separatley and not combined or compared to each other. Its a whole different ball game today than what it was in the past, everything should be treated individually. However whilst the OCC and BPI are lumping everything together its going to be very difficult to do so.

i.e if a song sold 750,000 in the physical age. thoat would be its physical sale, then if it sold 200,000 downloads that would be its download sale and same for streams

Posted by: AcerBen 8th January 2015, 01:52 PM

Your germ warfare analogy is insane. Streaming is clearly the future. Why would you prefer the sales chart to die a slow death than have the official chart attempt to reflect popularity, which is the whole point of it? They have only started including streams to help the chart be seen as relevant. If a large proportion of young people are turning away from downloads to streams, they have to reflect this, otherwise there's no point in having a chart at all.

Posted by: ThePensmith 8th January 2015, 02:09 PM

Excellent point - but most people probably hadn't heard of streaming as an avenue for music listening to such a great extent until 2013, when 'Get Lucky', 'Blurred Lines' etc all smashed it outside of 'sales' as it were. Those two songs, in my opinion, were probably responsible for putting Spotify etc on the map.

One could argue that 2013 was the year that sparked the OCC's idea, doubtless, but if you compare the average sales for a single to go top 10 against those of 2004 or 2005 when it really was in the doo doo, it wasn't in as much of a dire straits, I think. A slump yes, but not as big as people made out.

Posted by: Graham A 8th January 2015, 10:19 PM

I don't think I made my point clear enough. If the streaming is the future you make the main chart the - entire chart - streaming. You leave the sales chart as a sales chart. People once said the vinyl record sales were dead, but we know they are now picking up sales. So don't fall for the hype that sales charts are dying. They might be being murdered, but they are not dead yet.

There are lots of things that could affect the future of streaming. You saying it is the future is not a given thing. All it shows that you along with lots of other people have a bad view of history and therefore the future.
You only have to look at movie predictions of the future to see how wrong things can get if you follow your line of thinking. For example the airwaves should be full of private aircraft, or cars powered by fusion flying around the sky. Oh and in 2005 if you said that the download will be the future and it's how people will consume music for years to come. You can see your argument about streaming being the future as insane too.

More young people watch YouTube than stream records. That's not included in the UK chart, because YouTube is competition to the BBC services and the BBC (who fund the chart) won't allow it. It's another example how something can be stopped by something completely alien to it.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th January 2015, 10:21 PM

In the 1940s it was sheet music, people buying sheets with the music printed on it. Times change, you move on. Get over it!

Posted by: Suedehead2 8th January 2015, 10:26 PM

But the difference is that people were still paying a sum of money for a specific song. That has remained the case with vinyl, cassette, CD and downloads. It doesn't apply to streaming.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th January 2015, 10:33 PM

Oh I completely accept that, but the point I was trying to make was that the way we measure popularity of music will change almost continually through time to be the most representative of what is truly popular, and that HAS to change with how music is consumed or we end up with something that is meaningless.

The same countless boring 'let's keep the chart a physical sales only' chart arguments were peddled as pointed out by Jay in 2004 when digital sales were suggested to be included.

Posted by: Mart!n 8th January 2015, 10:39 PM

The thing is, we had the same problem when downloads were first introduced nobody was keen on them, now technology is more bang up to date, so streaming was bound to happen at some point, personally I don't like it but I'm embracing it, its the sign of the times you have to accept it, the same thing with downloads we have accepted it, streaming is here to stay no point in going backwards to the stone age.

OCC will just have to start combining million sellers, to get a better perspective of what is selling.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 8th January 2015, 10:44 PM

My counter-argument will be charity records. The Gareth Malone "Wake Me Up" cover was purchased by over 100,000 people, but how many people actually LISTENED to the song by choice. Streaming is arguably a lot more representative of a songs popularity IMO, and lo-and-behold the track didn't make the Top 100 streaming chart.

Posted by: liamk97 8th January 2015, 10:48 PM

The OCC revealed recently that 'Ghost' has "only" sold 744k to date so quite a difference! http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/2014-revealed-as-the-year-of-the-debut-chart-smash-3384/

Posted by: Suedehead2 8th January 2015, 10:48 PM

I never had a problem with including downloads. It's still a sale. Just because you can't pick it up and throw it across the room doesn't change that. However, a stream is not a sale.

Posted by: Mart!n 8th January 2015, 10:49 PM

Probably the older generation don't know how to stream

Posted by: liamk97 8th January 2015, 10:55 PM

I'd like to think people's views may be more favorable towards streams in the charts in a few years time when they become more popular and overall sales decrease more and more. I can understand the current queries and attitudes that are against streams but it's something that will just have to be accepted and hopefully the benefits will start to shine through more.

True, 2014/5 songs will show up higher in all-time lists than they "deserve" due to sales still being reasonably high along with streams being popular but it's similar to how 2004/5 songs show lower totals than they "deserve". For instance, the likes of 'Crazy in Love' and 'Hung Up' with sales of 600k when their popularity at the time and now would suggest that they should be million sellers. It's just one of those things, the charts have never shown equality when you compare different years but that's really not something that can be helped.

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 8th January 2015, 11:04 PM

If you look on Spotify there's a lot of 50-70 year olds streaming Blame

Posted by: Suedehead2 8th January 2015, 11:49 PM

How dare you

Posted by: AcerBen 9th January 2015, 12:07 AM

You haven't explained really why mixing streams and sales is such an issue. Why does it have to be one or the other when both are popular?

I really don't see what you're getting at with your predictions for the future. Nobody knows for sure how we'll be listening to music in the future, but with it becoming easier and easier to get fast Internet on the go, there is no need to carry hard drives around with you and pay £1 for each song when you can get it easier and cheaper via streaming. Downloads aren't going to die completely for a long time, but the trend is irreversible. You can't compare it with vinyl because vinyl is a physical product and people buy them for the sound, the look and the coolness of them. People aren't going to have an emotional connection to downloads.

Posted by: vidcapper 9th January 2015, 06:22 AM

One issue that doesn't seem to have been raised is that : if streaming had not been a possibility, how many extra downloads would have been bought?

IRO Taylor Swift, this is a more realistic consideration - if her songs were streamable, would she lose more in downloads than she'd pick up in streams?

Posted by: Qassändra 9th January 2015, 07:09 AM

I'm totally in favour of streaming being included in the chart, given it's important to recognise how music is consumed these days - not everybody buys anymore. But I do nonetheless think a million seller shouldn't include streaming - combining a cumulative measure (it's not as if many people would go out and buy the same track every week) with a one-off one muddies exactly what the point of a million selling list is supposed to show in my view.

And honestly I think the debate is totally different to the one on downloads. That was just tech snobbery from chart followers or fear from physical retailers as they knew their business model was so inefficient as to be doomed in the face of downloads (as we've seen over the last decade), but it didn't take away from the central point that a sale is a sale, regardless of what format it's in. I do think there will always be a market for music purchases - I don't see streaming becoming universal for a very, very long time, at least until universal access Wi-Fi becomes a thing - so having the central measure of a million seller would still be relevant.

Posted by: popchartfreak 9th January 2015, 07:54 AM

Yes, Taylor Swift's subsequent sales following the decision to remove her streaming catalogue suggest that streaming very much does eat in download sales, and the cash the artist makes is greater than the income from streaming (to them).


Other comments:

The record companies annual income is more or less static (and very high) thanks to the extra 12% cash streaming has generated, so that suggests to me that the main ones to benefit from streaming are the record companies, not the artists. So of course they love streaming.

As i've said before, download singles sales are NOT in crisis, they are still very high (just look at how many million sellers from downloads there are compared to previous decades). Album sales are declining because of that, for the most part people cherry pick tracks now - I know I do.

streaming is a useful reflection of a songs ONGOING popularity, but that doesn't mean it's not just being played to death over and over by the same people month after month and therefore contributing more than a single sale to the overall sales totals over a long period of time. So the arbitrary choice of 100 plays = 1 sale is just a made-up number, it's meaningless. Half of those "sales" could be comprised of people replaying the same track, or just using streaming as a radio format and not actively choosing what to listen to, just passively listening to whatever pops up (and I know people who do that).

A less annoying combined chart sytem would be weighting streaming and downloads according to the market income ratio. 12%, maximum, for very popular tracks weighted downwards from there for less popular tracks. And stop calling them sales when they ain't.

Posted by: vidcapper 9th January 2015, 09:10 AM

To be fair, it is called 'The Singles Chart' with no mention of either sales or streaming.

Posted by: Gambo 9th January 2015, 01:41 PM

Some very worthy points made from both sides of the argument, and also some who clearly are in two minds as to the advantages and disadvantages of this development.

I don't want to rehearse all the aspects of this difficult debate over again, but all I will say is that it's all very well us saying we want to continue the million-selling singles table based only on actual paid-for purchases, but it is already apparent that official sources are no longer disclosing those tallies. The only time we receive a full breakdown of sales and streams contributing to an overall chart 'sale' is in respect of the week's Number One. Almost without exception all other titles' weekly returns, or to-date totals, are given as a single figure inclusive of streaming-equivalent 'sales' and actual paid-for ones. Sadly, that includes the so-called million-sellers list. So, even if as I personally would prefer, we elect to maintain a sales-only tabulation for th purposes of this thread, where do we propose to obtain the necessary information from (unless one of you has a link to someone who can supply it off-the-record)?!

Those of us who ideally want to keep tabs on 'true' sales of a million or more without the arbitrary addition of streamed listens as if they can somehow be converted meaningfully to an individual purchase likely feel that this is important because (i) it allows a direct like-for-like comparison with earlier sales-only feats, and (ii) the concept of a true sale is fundamentally distinct from an audio stream, which is an entirely different way of consuming the product. I accept that streaming is important enough to take account of now, and the picture can't remain sales-only forever if we're to assess a broader capture of songs' level of appreciation amongst the public. But the two should not be continually conflated, especially as I suspect most punters don't know that 'sales' include audio streams now, and so to call something a million-seller is plainly misleading. As mentioned earlier, terminology at least needs to be amended, even if the result is something that is less-well understood by the majority of observers.

When it comes to all-time achievement lists, surely we should allow for more than just one. Sales should remain as per tradition, while audio streaming impact can always be measured separately and as it grows, the list of tracks streamed more than 100million times etc will burgeon, while the tracks selling 1 million or more will tail off as sales lose their dominance. I don't think that is such a poor solution, and accept that one will eventually rise to supplant the other in terms of relative interest and importance over the coming years.

However, these two different activities already seem to be permanently conflated in all reports and analysis we read about singles performance, just because they deal with the same product. A meaningful distinction should be retained between the two types of consumption, albeit that we now have a combined mainstream chart like it or not, and that a singular table reflecting wider popularity across the two platforms obviously makes sense as a more convenient 'single source of truth' from the industry's perspective.

I soon reconciled the sense behind digital sales being integrated into the physical sales chart a decade ago, because despite one being tangible and the other virtual, they were essentially still the same product - a singular audio recording of a song - being procured via a paid-for purchase, thereby denoting that person's declaration of interest in that product. We were still dealing with measuring performance by sales, not quite like-for-like of course but it still boils down to a copy of a recording bought to own. Yet I still wanted to see how the physical-only and digital-only markets were performing away from the combined rankings. Sadly the former was only made available for a few years after 2005 as the physical market continued to decline rapidly, but it proved that sooner or later, the old ways will be dropped from public view, which is a shame for the small number of us still interested in knowing about it, however niche the sector has become.

I have found it far-harder to reconcile the chart taking in audio streams, not because I am against reflecting broader popularity per se, but because they're simply not like-for-like ways of consuming the same product and felt that two rival charts would serve it better, with the streaming one probably becoming the table of importance by the end of the decade. I did learn to live with the main chart no longer being sales based as I realise the industry won't go for two rival official singles charts, but that was sweetened by the continuationof the separate sales and streams tabulations on the OCC site. Preferably far-more detail on breakdowns of true sales and streaming units would be given too, enabling us to make sense of the contribution each makes to a single's overall chart figure, but it seems we're out of luck on that already.

I would favour Buzzjack chart enthusiasts trying - if it were possible - to maintain three tallies in respect of all-time official singles performance: most-sold, most-streamed, and a combined unit figure as per the 100:1 ratio agreed for the weekly singles chart formula (i.e. the 'official' million-sellers list we get now). That way, even if they were only updated/published once at the end of each chart year, those who do care for the distinctions can be happy. My worry is they will gradually cease bothering to mention the 'true' sales of titles, and reduce the sales chart until they drop it altogether, leaving us entirely unaware of what is happening in sales, however small. By 2020, we may have very little to go on at all.

Posted by: ML Hammer95 9th January 2015, 01:46 PM

For those who remember the inclusion of download sales circa 2004-05, what effect did it have on the charts?? Did it cause the charts to become slower-moving for example?

Sales haven't dipped to 2004 levels, so perhaps the inclusion of streaming wasn't as NECESSARY as the inclusion of downloads or perhaps its pre-emptive as streaming will be more dominant in a few years time.

Posted by: fiesta 9th January 2015, 01:49 PM

Are people not maybe over stating the predicted decline in download sales, agreed they are falling and may continue to decline but will they really decline to such a level as say vinyl sales, I would have thought maybe down to maybe 70-80 million per annum minimum?

Posted by: Gambo 9th January 2015, 04:11 PM

Fiesta - I think you're probably correct on that. Maybe it's just old school nostalgia for the concept of buying singles, but it is hard to envisage people giving up almost entirely on purchasing digital tracks, at least in the way that they rapidly lost heart with physical between 2000 and 2010. Part of that is because a large portion of consumers have always bought their music and are happy to do so, albeit at today's rock-bottom prices, and probably see a little more certainty in owning the file rather than just streaming it. People do like to own, and not everyone will listen to enough on streaming sites to justify the subs, or wnat to put up with the free option with all the tiresome ads. It's not like the clear distinctions between a CD and a download, where the former, while tangible and more traditional, could not realistically compete with the latter which was so cheap and so convenient to obtain in comparison. Having to go to a store and pay a possible £2.99 or even higher for a single track, with perhaps one or two others which you may or may not want, was never going to compete. People may consider that more worthwhile for an album featuring perhaps 12 tracks for a tenner, hence the CD's 60% share of the albums market even today, but with singles, downloads were king and that isn't going to change overnight. Download sales will creep down as the rest of the 2010s unfold, but I don't think it will look like such a dated method of procuring single tracks in 2020 as buying a CD single did in 2010. Just look at the sales figures for the No 1s of the last year; still pretty healthy on average with frequent six-figure amounts shifted in a week. It's the market overall that is shrinking, as the total singles sold each week compared to a year ago consistently show. But it's not a collapse.

Hopefully we might see a market where sales are only modestly-depleted per release, coupled with a healthy streaming sector to complement it. Best of both worlds. As long as they don't introduce video streaming to the chart though - to my mind that isn't even the same product as an audio single as someone could just as easily be streaming it on YouTube because they like the video clip but actually wouldn't listen to or buy the song on its own. A single is an audio song first with any video as a back-up to it, and the minute video streams are allowed to encroach, that really is it for me and the official chart!

Posted by: vidcapper 9th January 2015, 04:32 PM

That's certainly true for me - I prefer listening to music on my iPod, and I can't stream from that.

Posted by: Gambo 9th January 2015, 04:43 PM

It had to be a pre-emptive strike, after the embarrassment of dismissing illegal downloads for so long and then when they woke up a belated rush to try and monetise the format, and then work out how to introduce any emergent legal market into the mainstream singles chart. They didn't want to be caught pants-down again, and so having reached a consensus that streaming was showing exponential growth and was likely the 'next big thing' with consuming digital music, if anything they were a little too quick-off-the mark in integrating audio streaming with the sales chart.

The problem with the integration of the download market into the physical was that the OCC had to phase it in in three steps which in the end took 20 months, and in the process made far more of a mockery of the main singles chart than was necessary. Initially, from 23 April 2005 only download sales for titles available physically in the last 52 weeks could be counted. Then, from 18 March 2006 download sales for titles available physically in a week's time could be counted, but this was offset by a woeful decision to exclude them again from two weeks after any deletion of the physical release. All these moves were designed to try and appease competing voices within the industry, and as it is they who have influence on the way the charts are run that was understandable, but the chart was very partial and failed to reflect the rapidly-rising digital market properly until 13 January 2007 when sales of both formats at any stage could be counted regardless. Looking back at that mess, even those of us who felt that combining streaming and sales in the mainstream tabulation was pushed through somewhat prematurely given the still-resilient state of the downloads sector, we should at least be thankful that once they'd decided to integrate them, they did so cleanly and on a complete basis, with no daft exemptions or sops. Okay the ratio of 100 streams to 1 sale is arbitrary and for many two just don't compute on any basis, but it was a clear and easy measure.

Despite these teething problems, from 23 Apr '05 one can see some slow-down in the chart as regards the length of time many singles would remain on the Top 75. Whilst climbs to a peak were yet to return en masse, with most entries still being at peak, decline could be every much more graceful thanks to the ongoing trickle-sell of the download format. From 18 Mar '06 climbs, at least on week 2, inevitably became more common where still-significant first-week physical sales kicked-in on a title already available at least a week before to download, and from 13 Jan '07 climbs became as common as instant peaks as download sales steadily built towards a physically-driven peak and then quite likely a very steady withdrawal, in the case of some of the big-hitters. As CD sales dissipated and effectively left the equation for most releases, all forms of chart behaviour and movement could be seen based on download performance alone, and so it's hard to characterise the charts since the late '00s. But I think most would agree, downloads did and still do slow down what had become in the late physical era a dizzying turnover of singles. Many welcomed this, as one can more-readily follow and get familiar with the bona fide established hits, yet it's not boring at the top - still plenty of No 1/Top 10 entries etc as well as long-runners and slow-burners. Although I see on some sites that some are now starting to bemoan this trend and are yearning for the constant 30-new-entry Top 75 weeks, numerous high debuts and rapid declines that typified the mid '90s to mid '00s! They are likely to become even more disconsolate with the official combined chart, because the more it takes precedence, audio streaming can only slow movement down even more. It's already showing outside the Top 20 in particular, with numerous huge commercial hits and radio-favourites perennially bobbing back up and down the rungs. An instant sales hit may take several weeks to blossom as an equivalent streaming success, if ever it does so.

Apologies - a bit off-topic now.

Posted by: Graham A 9th January 2015, 08:25 PM

I'm not predicting anything for the future. It's you that's doing that. Even in that you say "there is no need to carry hard drives around with you and pay £1 for each song when you can get it easier and cheaper via streaming" but as I said this MIGHT not follow on. A new technology could interfere with the process or there could be a sociological change which has nothing to do with the music industry that changes how music is listened to or performed.
As an historian I can show you how the development of education for all as affected the world since many countries increased the school leaving age past 12. Indeed this process created the teenager who listens to popular music. However like many things the education of people aged between 12 and 16 and beyond has also increased some nasty side effects on the population. Most of these were present in the past, but never in large numbers and the process is still continuing. The recent increase of the school leaving age to 18 in the UK will play out in the years to come having more nasty side effects and a just few positive ones.
Unfortunately at the moment few people believe that education for people aged 12 to 18 is actually attacking the societies we live in. Quite the reverse actually with huge amounts of cash being thrown at the problem to make education solve the problems that it is actually creating.
One of these side-effects might be to make certain young people believe that the music they like is being damaged by the companies that offer streaming. This view can be right or wrong, as it simply doesn't matter if those that believe it to be true think that way. Streaming would then go out of the window like the 78 record. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will happen as you can't tell what movements education will create. But it has done in the past, from punk to mod to dance. It created the gay scene too and loads of other movements too. But makes no bones about it sending kids to school past the age of 12 is what started them all.

If you want to know more about the both positive and negative effects of the Education Culture just search Google for Reflected People by Graham Appleyard and you will find my blog.

As for you first question a sale is a sale - streaming is simply Radio airplay without the radio and presenter to choose the records. Radio Airplay is not allowed in the UK chart even though many millions are listening to the record. Of course they might not like the record they are listening to, but since a 30 seconds of play on streaming site counts to the chart then it's possible that someone listens to a record for even longer than that and still doesn't like the record. So it cancels it out any argument not to exclude Airplay. Not that I would want that in the chart either!
In any case the sales chart was never about what was popular it just had that effect. Small fan bases could push a record into the chart on sales of the record that wasn't seen as cool or popular. The streaming chart doesn't actually do this. It could if it wasn't restrained from doing so by the rules imposed by the OCC. In fact the rules themselves actually stop it from being popular. Streaming has also slowed down the records entering the charts. Though new ones that are being streamed only is simply down to the record companies in the UK not releasing the said records. Though downloads did slow down the charts too. That was largely down to the restrictive practices of the record companies and the monopoly of Apple that prevented lots of download sites appearing. For example it took ages to get shut of DRM management and the transition to MP3 by download sites. Yet even now the number of download sites is small and the pricing thus fixed at a price way above what it costs to pay for an album. If you download ten tracks individually for example, it costs a lot more to do so then if those tracks were on an album.

Posted by: JosephStyles 9th January 2015, 09:19 PM

Just singling out this part - the KEY DIFFERENCE is what you said, the fact that the user changes it! I'd personally be *strongly* against airplay being included, because it's the executives/presenters that choose that, not the public, but the public choose what they buy or stream (with the help of radio of course but that's not the be-all and end-all). They may not like the record they're listening to, but so what? It's 0.01 of a sale, that will make NO difference to a song's chart position. Surely the VAST majority of the time, people listen to the songs they like on Spotify. If they don't like it, they won't go back to it.

Posted by: popchartfreak 9th January 2015, 10:51 PM

I will never get on with streaming because I can make my own albums for the car and elsewhere of my current faves with downloads. The long-term advantage of downloads, which no-one is mentioning, is you get to continue to play old music years later - that might not sound vital if you're 18, but trust me 20 or 30 years on if you are reliant on such and such a company having a particular track available to listen to that's a big assumption. That's also true with downloads - there are hundreds and thousands of tracks predating download era which are still not available to buy or stream - you either have to rely on youtube or second-hand vinyl and cd if you failed to buy them first time round (and want to hear them).

Another point regarding downloads declining slightly, and albums quite a bit - the annoying deluxe packages after youve already bought an album do nothing for artist loyalty and hit the sales of follow-up albums as there's no point buying something that will have extra tracks a year later, while dare I suggest 2014 hasn't been a great year for hit singles - though when one comes along with a bang (as opposed to hype) like Mark Ronson it can sell fast and pretty furious...

Posted by: JosephStyles 10th January 2015, 12:38 AM

I doubt re-issues are particularly denting sales right now, they aren't any more frequent than they used to be are they?

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 10th January 2015, 11:08 AM

Is it easy or cheap to put a song on streaming? Because if not, the less wealthy companies or artists will suffer if they only have sales to achieve success.

Posted by: popchartfreak 10th January 2015, 03:28 PM

easy? very. The problem is the streaming companies view themselves as deigned to be under the same royalty rules as radio rather than sales - except when it suits them to want it to be "sales" for chart and publicity purposes.

Bette Midler 2014:

Billboard magazine:


Add Bette Midler to the growing list of musicians publicly expressing their displeasure with the amounts Pandora, Spotify and other digital radio and music streaming services pay artists. On Friday, the Divine Miss. M tweeted that Pandora paid her slightly more than $114 for more than four million song spins over a three month period. That would mean for each digital radio airplay she earned a rather microscopic micropayment of .00002733076 cents per track.


"We love Bette’s music and certainly respect her advocacy for fair compensation for artists," a Pandora spokesperson said in response to this story. "But we must clarify an important fact: Pandora paid more than $6,400 for those 4+ million plays, based on our 2014 rates which are published publicly. In terms of compensation to the creative community Pandora remains by far the highest paying form of radio. Pandora pays songwriters a greater percentage of revenue than terrestrial radio. And Pandora paid 48% of our revenue in performance royalties to rights-holders in 2013 – more than $300 million – while terrestrial radio was required to pay nothing."


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Over the last year, however, a rising chorus of musicians have spoken out against what they see as music streaming services' inadequate royalty payments, which includes Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Atoms for Peace's Nigel Godrich, David Byrne and, most recently, Steven Tyler.

Tyler was in Washington D.C. on March 25 for the National Music Publishers Association's "Celebration of the American Songwriter" event which also honored Senator Chuck Grassley. According to National Journal, the Aerosmith frontman expressed his disdain for current digital royalty rates: "If the laws continue going the way they are," he said, "[songwriters] will never be paid fairly for [their] own participation. So people, forgive me for being a little jaded about the state of copyright."

Last week, too, Grammys president and CEO Neil Portnow wrote an op-ed in Roll Call calling for legislation to address copyright issues which was timed to the organization's annual Grammys on the Hill event. Here he outlined the MusicBus initiative which he summed up as a “Fair market pay to all music creators across all platforms.” The music industry organization plans this year to extend its political outreach with a “Grammys in my district” day in which 22,000 members of The Recording Academy will be encouraged to "bring music to their legislators’ local offices and make the case for fairness for music creators."


All this comes in the wake of a recent court battle between Pandora and ASCAP in which a federal rate court essentially maintained the status quo upholding the amount the digital radio service pays the performance rights organization. Sony/ATV Publishing CEO Martin Bandier called the decision "a clear defeat for songwriters" and "woefully inadequate."

Pandora has actively complained about and sought to change what it sees as onerous royalty payments—especially in comparison to what terrestrial radio pays out. There are signs, however, that the digital radio service's business model is starting to scale. For the fiscal year, Pandora posted revenues of $638.9 million, up 56% from 2012 and paid out $342.9 million in music licensing royalties, roughly 53.8% of its total revenue. That ratio is an improvement over 2012, when Pandora spent 60.6% of its revenue on licensing costs. The company, however, also posted a larger annual loss due to higher costs. Pandora lost $40.7 million in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, compared with a $35.6 million loss in 2012.

None of which has helped assuage the financial difficulties many musicians face. In late March an artist named Armen Chakmakian posted his quarterly earnings statement online igniting a discussion on the fairness of digital streaming rates. Chakmakian received $4.20 in total royalties from twelve digital music companies (including .33 cents from Pandora and .76 cents from Spotify). Finally, the paltry amounts led the musician to conclude: "Business practices like this are one of the reasons I jumped ship and only write for television now."

*This story was correction appended following its initial publication: Neil Portnow is president/CEO of the Grammys not the RIAA; and Steven Tyler spoke at the National Music Publishers Association's event not a Grammys on the Hill event.

and people wonder why Taylor Swift, who owns her own label and has the power, pulled her stuff from streaming sites.....

and given they are still losing money year on year (streaming companies) why do people keep saying they are the future? 12% of the market (cashwise) yet every week they claim to have 50% of the UK singles "sales". No they don't. They have an arbitrarily chosen ratio of 50%, but pull in nowhere near the amount of cash that downloads do for artists (I don't care too much about the few remaining massive monopoly record companies profits)

Posted by: ► ▲ N 10th January 2015, 04:02 PM

Streaming is really not as bad as some make it out to be, it should definitely be included in the chart and therefore included in songs unit totals (to save confusion I think the name should be changed to million unit sellers or something like that).

And let's not pretend Spotify don't pay much royalties, 70% of their income goes towards it!



If artists don't get paid well it's not necessarily Spotify's fault but the record label's, Spotify don't have the rights to give all the royalties directly to the artist.

This is the royalty formula used

So that's $1 per 119 - 167 streams, $1 = £0.66. Not exactly the 1:100 ratio the OCC would have us believe, but there you go. And of course when you buy a song for £1, some of the money goes to Apple/Google/w/e. Plus for paying customers the payout is slightly higher.

and their paying customers spend more on music than the average music buyer:



Read here http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/

Posted by: popchartfreak 10th January 2015, 05:41 PM

It's still a flawed business model, though - losing money is not a way forward.

70% of income paid out? Given their entire universe is based on around the product of others I'd say that was still not enough, what exactly do they DO for that 30% share in terms of job creation, artist development....anything really?

Of course artists are getting stiffed - streaming didn't exist when their contracts were signed. Morally, though, I'm with the artists, the people who make the music that the entire business depends on. Record Companies need pop stars, and I'm just not going to support any business that fails to recognise that.

Personally I'd suggest any wannabee popstar to model themselves on Adele and Taylor Swift, independent and in control, and making sh-loads of cash and sales of records on their own terms.

Posted by: SPINNING ADAM 10th January 2015, 07:02 PM

So basically, if an artist wants to do well they should put up their track on sales and streaming or they're going to be put down 10-40 odd places depending on where on the chart you are. Union J, what was your excuse exactly?

Posted by: DanChartFan 11th January 2015, 06:40 PM

I don't think streaming even comes close to a comparable format to purchases (either virtual or physical), and I don't see how they make any money. I now have a free account on deezer, and almost never see or hear any adverts, so I'm paying nothing to stream dozens of tracks a week, and neither really are the advertisers who supposedly fund the service. I'm not complaining in the short run, if the music industry wants to give me totally free and legal access to the majority of all the recorded music that's ever existed then that's their look out, but in the long run they will end up not having the financial means to contract new artists or retain existing ones etc. IMHO streaming will eventually be pay only and the subscription fees will increase considerably over time to allow a viable income, which in turn will cause people to go back to downloading (legal or illegal) and listening to the radio rather than streaming, so it's definitely not a certainty that streaming will become the main format in the future.
To answer the original question, keep million sellers as sales only, and have a separate list for say billion-streamers or something. As far as overall sales tallies are concerned mixing two totally different concepts makes no sense to me and is totally different to when download sales were considered the same as physical sales.

Posted by: Blondini 11th January 2015, 06:52 PM

Agree with first two posts. No issue with including them but the terminology should be changed. We keep having to say "sales" now when referring to UK and US charts!

Posted by: vidcapper 13th February 2015, 03:06 PM

The thing with not counting streams towards million-sellers, is that it assumes they are *extra* 'sales'. ISTM though that they are more likely to be an *alternative* to downloads, so if streaming wasn't an option, download sales would be significantly higher. Therefore it seems unfair to totally disregard them when totting up million-sellers.

Posted by: AntoineTTe 13th February 2015, 04:50 PM

Logic says steaming should be included when it comes to calculating million sellers but I'm not comfortable with that at all.

Posted by: popchartfreak 14th February 2015, 10:37 PM

It's not logical to count streaming in million sales any more than it is to count radio plays or jukebox plays or youtube plays. No matter what it's called, it ain't a sale.

A level playing field is the only way to cross the decades fairly. Otherwise, might as well start weighting it based on how much the sales actually cost way back when (4 or 5 times what they cost now) or add in million-plus sales for people who bought albums that included the tracks - that would have eaten into sales as much as any radio play, streaming, youtube does. A million seller in the 60's was an event as it was so expensive to buy a single, and rare. Now they are so cheap it's not such a landmark, but it's still important to me it stays pure.

Posted by: Suedehead2 14th February 2015, 10:47 PM

It's not just the cost. Continuous availability has also made it easier. The number of old songs to have passed the mark in recent years is testament to that. To take an example, Julie Covington's definitive version of Don't Cry For Me Argentina was a few thousand short of a million for years before downloads finally got it across the line.

For me, one million sales is still a landmark worth celebrating. Yes, it took far less time to get from 100 to 150 than it took for the previous blocks of million-sellers but many of those fifty were fairly old. OTOH, one million "sales" with streams included is a far less impressive achievement.

Posted by: Graham A 16th February 2015, 01:11 AM

The reason many records have passed over the million mark since they were first released is that they were made available to purchase by the introduction of the download. Prior to that the record company had deleted the track as it was too expensive to keep it in circulation.
The problem with streaming is that some of the streaming costs are paid for by advertisements. People have to buy a download or a CD etc. They don't have to pay for a streamed record. Since some users of streaming sites don't pay a fee to the site to use it. Instead they have to listen to adverts. This means that a site might cater for advertisers over the artists they pay money too. It follows too that a link could develop between artists who makes records that suit certain large funders of advertisers on streaming sites. Many acts themselves have links with commercial companies. It wouldn't take much for a very commercial track, linked with a particular product, to soon became a big seller or should I say most listened to record.

Though I don't like streaming being included in charts at all. If it has to be done, plus while people still purchase records, then it should be done on the basis that a person pays for the streaming service and not by proxy through adverts. This should certainly apply to the million seller, plus a unit added should be at the cost of the average price of a download. Not on the royalty figure!

Posted by: vidcapper 16th February 2015, 06:30 AM

I only have a free Spotify account because I don't listen to anything like enough music to be worth my paying a monthly sub.