Posted January 1, 201411 yr http://www.bpi.co.uk/media-centre/surge-in...th-in-2013.aspx Interesting article on sales and streaming, courtesy of Robbie.
January 13, 201411 yr Bump. Issues with incorporating streaming into the main charts... An obvious one will be that songs will be worth different amounts depending on how much someone uses a streaming site. e.g. 2 people use Spotify at the same subscription level : one streams 100 songs a month, the other 500 songs. Surely that would mean that songs streamed by the 2nd person should only count 1/5th as much, as their sub is being split between 5 times as many songs?
January 13, 201411 yr Author Streaming data added to singles charts in Germany Source: MW 5 Jan, 2014 by Tom Pakinkis Streaming data from paid-for premium services will now be integrated into the official singles charts in Germany. In addition, a separate streaming chart will be added to the German Federal Music Industry Association’s (BVMI) suite of charts that gives the same weight to plays on both ad-supported and paid-for services. Only tracks that are streamed for 31 seconds or more will be included in Germany’s official top 100 singles charts. BVMI’s managing director Dr. Florian Drucke said that the move was made to meet the “increasing importance” of streaming. Thus, we not only improve the accuracy of the official German charts as the most important indicator of the success of artists and bands, but also emphasize their cross-cutting nature as key differentiator." A release from BVMI points out that the top 100 singles charts in Germany “are so-called value charts based on the value of a music product, and not solely on the number of sales.” Sweden announced an album chart that includes streaming data in October last year, and Norway followed suit a month later with its own combined album chart. “Of the total music sales in Norway, streaming accounts for nearly 70%, which is one of the largest streaming shares in the world. The time is right to include streaming in the album chart,” said Marte Thorsby, MD of IFPI Norway at the time. ===== UK next :(
January 13, 201411 yr Surely streaming is a good move, it a measure of what some people are purchasing, albeit not the song itself but the right to listen to the song. Obviously it should be weighted so it only includes people who pay for streaming and to only cover its proportion of value towards the chart (although I'm not mathematically minded so I cannot give a suggestion of how it would work).
January 13, 201411 yr There are a number of reasons why I don't like the idea of including streaming, even assuming that one streamed play only counts for a small fraction of a sale. If I buy a CD it counts once and once only regardless of how much I listen to it. I could listen to it three times a day every day for five years and it only counts once in the week I bought it. OTOH, if somebody listens to it on a streaming site every day for five years it counts each time. That doesn't seem right to me. There is also the question of what should count. If someone listens to an individual album regularly on a streaming site but skips one track they don't like, does that count as a "sale" for each of the remaining songs? It still seems to be potentially too easy to rig the chart. For example, a record company could leave all their PCs playing songs in a loop overnight to add to the figures. Obviously they could already be doing that for the streaming chart but that chart's relatively low profile means it is less of an issue. I can see vidcapper's point about how much people use the site but that seems to add an unnecessary degree of complication, particularly as it could only be calculated on a weekly basis. Therefore, if someone is really busy one week and listen to just a few songs, is it right that they contribute more to the chart? If someone is near their monthly limit (assuming such a concept exists), that could be another reason why they only listen to a small number of songs one week. Of course, depending on how much each stream contributes to the chart, we could see even more old Christmas songs in the chart each December.
January 13, 201411 yr I think its inevitable because people are fed up of waiting and paying in this day & age. Once again the record companies are slow to change and give the public in 2014 what they want. I would be concerned with the good point Suedehead makes about fixing the chart by playing streams on loop!
January 13, 201411 yr It still seems to be potentially too easy to rig the chart. For example, a record company could leave all their PCs playing songs in a loop overnight to add to the figures. Obviously they could already be doing that for the streaming chart but that chart's relatively low profile means it is less of an issue. THIS is my biggest issue with adding streaming to the chart. Surely this must have occurred to them already, although I don't know what they could do to prevent it.
January 13, 201411 yr I presume spotify, deezer etc pay a fixed price per stream to the relevant record label, rather than a fraction of each user's monthly fee depending on how many streams that individual user has "consumed", and it would be that fixed price that would be incorporated into the main chart? Don't know how robust a system could be against fixing, but there could be a limit on the number of countable streams from a single IP address? And as streaming really takes off, it might require several hundred thousand plays a week to seriously rig the chart. I wouldn't be in favour of it, but I think at some point the singles chart will need to be a revenue chart, like the movies box office chart rather than a unit sales chart.
January 13, 201411 yr There have been measures in place to stop spam streams or rigging views on sites like Youtube and Spotify for years now, so I don't think that's a major problem. Also, I've been following the US charts where they've been including streaming since 2012, and in the whole time they only suspicious case I've seen was Dope by Lady Gaga somehow getting #1 on the streaming chart (putting it top 10 in the overall chart). However, it might be easier to rig the chart in the UK since it's a much smaller country, but even so, how is it much different to all the Facebook campaigns we have? I don't think streaming should be included in the official chart, since a stream is not a sale. If they want to make a combined chart they should make a brand new chart for it imo. Also, I think if streaming is included in the charts, some sort of recurrent rule needs to be added, or else we will start having lots of songs spending 30+ weeks in the top 40.
January 13, 201411 yr If I buy a CD it counts once and once only regardless of how much I listen to it. I could listen to it three times a day every day for five years and it only counts once in the week I bought it. OTOH, if somebody listens to it on a streaming site every day for five years it counts each time. That doesn't seem right to me. I'm not disputing your point but there is a slight difference - you're contributing the same amount of money to the label whether you don't play a CD at all or play it hundreds of times, whereas with streaming the more you listen the more you contribute.
January 13, 201411 yr I think at some point the singles chart will need to be a revenue chart This would be interesting, but imagine how difficult it would be to compile (unless they got the information directly from that company that sorts out the royalties). They would have to track: - Sales - Streaming - Radio airplay (something that people are against being in the chart, but it does producer revenue) - Clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. - Use in films, adverts, TV shows - Money made from the song being sampled in other songs, or covered by other artists Probably more things which I've forgotten. If they did this, sometimes songs that sell hardly anything would be high in the chart, and songs that sell a lot would be low down.
January 13, 201411 yr Yeah the problem with a 'revenue chart' is that would include airplay which has no place in an official chart other than one that is specifically an airplay chart.
January 13, 201411 yr This would be interesting, but imagine how difficult it would be to compile (unless they got the information directly from that company that sorts out the royalties). They would have to track: - Sales - Streaming - Radio airplay (something that people are against being in the chart, but it does producer revenue) - Clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. - Use in films, adverts, TV shows - Money made from the song being sampled in other songs, or covered by other artists Probably more things which I've forgotten. If they did this, sometimes songs that sell hardly anything would be high in the chart, and songs that sell a lot would be low down. If a revenue chart did include everything, some songs could reach a very high position simply by being used in a film, advert etc. without selling a single extra copy. While a little known song might not cost much to use, a well-known song can cost a substantial sum.
January 13, 201411 yr This would be interesting, but imagine how difficult it would be to compile (unless they got the information directly from that company that sorts out the royalties). They would have to track: - Sales - Streaming - Radio airplay (something that people are against being in the chart, but it does producer revenue) - Clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. - Use in films, adverts, TV shows - Money made from the song being sampled in other songs, or covered by other artists Probably more things which I've forgotten. If they did this, sometimes songs that sell hardly anything would be high in the chart, and songs that sell a lot would be low down. When I was thinking of revenue I was only considering physical sales, downloads and streams but the other elements you mention make it intriguing- the airplay revenue is probably trackable and calculable, PPS type public plays less so. Most of the licensing revenue from film use, samples etc would be commercially private deals but that would certainly be one easy but costly way for the big media conglomerates to rig the chart!
January 13, 201411 yr One unfortunate conclusion I am coming to is that the purity of a singles sales chart which I have enjoyed following for 30 years is going to become unviable, so either streams/airplay etc come in, or it remains a purchased sales chart and looks as ridiculously out of touch as the French singles chart was when it kept on excluding downloads even with minuscule physical sales.
January 13, 201411 yr There should still be sales chart. But singles chart should include streaming. However, I'd rather see streaming added on albums chart because that's what most people I know do - they have spotify that they can listen to albums. Nobody downloads albums here.
January 13, 201411 yr Nobody downloads albums here. Were they not at an all-time high a week or two ago? :P
January 13, 201411 yr In Finland? Yes. Album downloads are minuscule. Being most downloaded album means you can chart in top 40 if lucky. That's where Beyonce entered.
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