How fascinating, I do wish you'd post more about this Dust2.

Kind of surprised that 'The Man' is leading the Spotify charts this week :o

Looks like physical CD, digital tracks download and digital album downloads all have peaked in the USA.

 

All 3 are now in decline.

 

Streaming is the only component growing (should surpass download by the end of 2015)

 

the GROWTH of streaming in the USA

 

2011: $650 million

2012: $1.033 billion (up 59%)

2013: $1.439 billion (up 39%)

 

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news...down-streams-up

 

It's easy to see why Itunes want to do an exclusive to prevent streaming from growing even faster:

 

 

Interesting reading i notice in the percentage graphs on MW each week album downloads were 32-35% on average last yr and now are approximately 37-40% so far this yr. Its increasing at a snails pace and could start to fall in 2014 as streaming takes over. At least in the chart its keeping album sales around the No10 spot between 7-10k (which is nothing to shout about anyway)

Iam pretty shocked really why streaming is still sutch a small part of the UK chart. In scandinavia, the singles chart is based on over 95 % of Spotify. Itunes sales are close to zero and has been for severel years. The Swedish and Norwedian singles chart started to including it alredy in 2010. In a way, i just dont understand why people these days pay for every single song insted of just listening everything for like 5 £ without any ads or something.

 

These days, even the album charts includes streaming, and it really feels a bit messy as nobody really knows how they put together those charts.

These days, even the album charts includes streaming, and it really feels a bit messy as nobody really knows how they put together those charts.

 

An album chart based on streaming data would be almost impossible to do perfectly imo. There's numerous different ways you could measure album streams, and they all have significant flaws. For example, the way Spotify measures album streams has lead to people like Pitbull and Flo Rida topping album charts in the past.

I can see why album download sales never really picked up much- they are overpriced when you think you can cherry pick your favourite tracks for half the price, or buy a physical copy (with booklet etc) for a little bit more. Worrying times for the album format - but when they have been such poor value for money (couple of singles + loads of filler) for pop based acts in the past few decades I can't say I'm that sad to lose them. Far prefer singles!

Not sure if this has been brought up yet but any ideas what the BPI will do in regards to certifications? I presume they will include streaming when updating certifications and the number of copies to pass each certification will be moved up.

 

 

Not necessarily. Sales are sales, streams are streams. The Official Charts Company can include streaming in their official chart, but BPI doesn't have to certify the streams. So certifications can stay sales only. Or, maybe they can start certifying the streams separately from sales.

 

IMO, OOC should keep the sales and streaming charts separate. Right now, the sales chart is the official UK singles chart. Once streaming really overtakes the sales, make the streaming chart official. No need to mix apples and oranges. That's what I hate with the Billboard charts.

 

And just say no to including radio airplay.

^ For what it's worth, in the US they recently started having sales and streams combined for certifications. I agree it's quite messy though.

^ For what it's worth, in the US they recently started having sales and streams combined for certifications. I agree it's quite messy though.

I recently saw 'Super Bass'' certification as 8x Platinum and I was thinking "this can't have sold as much as the Black Eyed Peas?" but forgot it included all forms of streaming! Based on this, I wouldn't want streaming to be combined in certifications as it does get quite messy, especially if a song is a YouTube hit (a la 'Baby''s 12x Platinum certification where it's only just trickled past 4 million downloads).

I recently saw 'Super Bass'' certification as 8x Platinum and I was thinking "this can't have sold as much as the Black Eyed Peas?" but forgot it included all forms of streaming! Based on this, I wouldn't want streaming to be combined in certifications as it does get quite messy, especially if a song is a YouTube hit (a la 'Baby''s 12x Platinum certification where it's only just trickled past 4 million downloads).

 

I wonder what Rebecca Black - Friday's certification is! :lol: Or Gangnam Style for that matter.

 

I read somewhere that Super Bass was the most streamed song in the US of 2011. I'm surprised that it got more than Party Rock Anthem.

Edited April 18, 201411 yr by Eric_Blob

I wonder what Rebecca Black - Friday's certification is! :lol: Or Gangnam Style for that matter.

 

I read somewhere that Super Bass was the most streamed song in the US of 2011. I'm surprised that it got more than Party Rock Anthem.

Gangnam Style is still on 5x Platinum which I think is just its sales? Weird!

 

I think looking at it now, Super Bass has 400m views compared to Party Rock Anthem's 671m, I think a high proportion, if not the majority of Nicki's views will be from the US seeing as it only properly smashed there (and the UK/Oceania), whereas Party Rock Anthem smashed EVERYWHERE, therefore garnering more overall views but with them distributed out further, allowing Nicki to have more US streams. That's just my take on it though!

Does anyone know anything about the rules in the streaming charts, for examples if someone plays a song twenty times a week would that be equal to the streaming equivalent of twenty sales or does it just count as one

Does anyone know anything about the rules in the streaming charts, for examples if someone plays a song twenty times a week would that be equal to the streaming equivalent of twenty sales or does it just count as one

I think in the current Streaming Chart, it's just the number of streams a song gets from streaming services ranks the song on the chart. In America, as the Hot 100 now incorporates streams into it, 100 streams is equivalent of 1 sale unit (for certification purposes, as the Hot 100 also includes airplay). I read earlier on here that, hypothetically, if we took Clean Bandit's week where 'Rather Be' received 1,050,000 streams in a week and we treated 50 streams as 1 sale unit for the chart, it equate to 21,000 sales units. To me, that seems like a fair figure, enough to change the positioning of chart places, but not enough to weight streaming in favour of sales (yet).

Maybe, since "1 point" in the official charts won't mean "1 sale" we can move on the the German model of counting up the charts, by revenue?

 

BYE 59p boosted singles then.

As far as I have seen the streaming inclusion in Sweden's album chart has made it barely move and be completely stagnant.

Well look at the current US charts. :lol: All the same songs in the top-10 for three weeks now, and even these songs practically don't swap with each other!

 

The fact with streaming is that you usually don't buy the same single every week, yet you can stream the song for YEARS, and it would still count to the charts.

Edited April 18, 201411 yr by V▲GIN▲ OF ▲RSE

as Ive said at length, totally against streaming, glorified jukebox not sales in any way.

 

The case for downloads? You own it. You can copy it to cd, play it in the car, at home, at any time in your whole life, back it up, take it on holiday, listen on the tube. Streaming is so restricted, requires specialist equipment, internet and having enough ongoing cash to keep on with payments monthly. Run out of cash and you still have a backlog of music you own to listen to. It's a useful supplement to, but not as flexible as, download.

Maybe, since "1 point" in the official charts won't mean "1 sale" we can move on the the German model of counting up the charts, by revenue?

 

BYE 59p boosted singles then.

I think the 100 streams = 1 sale thing is a better idea. A revenue based chart won't be the best as it would take airplay and advert usage into account as major radio stations have to pay the record label every time they play their song etc.

 

I wouldn't worry if they started including streaming like this as it wouldn't affect the charts too much. The number one on streaming is currently 'The Man' with 853,687 streams (not taking into account non-Spotify streaming services) which translates into 8,537 sales. So yeah Kiesza would still be #1 by some distance, and let's not forget people are streaming her too.

BYE 59p boosted singles then.

 

This has pretty much ended now anyway. The only tracks at 59p these days are new releases by certain desperate pop acts and new post-album singles.

Maybe, since "1 point" in the official charts won't mean "1 sale" we can move on the the German model of counting up the charts, by revenue?

 

BYE 59p boosted singles then.

 

Brace yourselves for those £90 Led Zep albums going Top 10 in a couple of weeks then.