happily I'll be out the country the day the sales chart dies. 6th July is the date the chart becomes a music industry construct. No other way of describing it cos sales are pretty healthy historically, singles-wise, and recording how often people to choose to listen to a record is just ludicrous. More of a help to advertisers than music lovers....

 

I look forward to seeing records that have sold a million and been around for 6 months going back up the 6th July chart, not to mention Radioactive popping back in 18MONTHS after first charting and hitting my personal number one. Yawwwwwn.

 

The chart is rigged currently. Pre-orders and held back releases allow record labels to manipulate the chart as when they please (hello 5 Seconds of Summer / The Vamps and every other boyband). Even now instant grats are being abused (hello Ed Sheeran).

One person playing a 4 minute song on repeat for an entire week would be 2,520 plays which equates to 25 sales. Completely negligible impact.

 

This is a good point, actually. I'm sure it'll be exploited at some point but with the way people listen to music changing again, streaming is a necessary step. It keeps it current and most importantly still reflects the current popular tastes of the UK. Infact it better reflects it, imo.

 

Do we think they're going to give us a joint sales + steams "sales" figure, or separate them to give us a points total?

 

Edit: I see my last point has already been answered :D

Edited June 22, 201411 yr by Hagstör

If this means OA/OS releases in the UK, then my opinion has changed completely and I am excited as heck. My iTunes balance would go from £25 to £0 in a flash.

that's just spotify there's deezer, napster, o2, xbox, sony, & rara as well~

 

The report says that only 2 songs have ever gone over 1.5m streams so if Spotify songs can get to 1m, it's probably fair to assume that they are just about as dominant of the streaming market as iTunes are of the download market.

Further tweets

 

@JackSargeson1 Yes, both streams and sales will be given out separately.

 

@RobinJuanPersie Changes in record labels' release strategies once streaming counts towards the chart will also have an effect. Stay tuned!

 

@seanieb1983 @JoePassmore Streams will be, and already are, capped to prevent chart rigging.

 

Jackers getting in on the action I see :D

 

 

Return of OA/OS possibly? YES PLEASE! :D

I'm kinda on the fence. On one hand, I've always liked the fact that the chart has always been purely sales based, but I guess the way we listen to/purchase music has evolved so it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it doesn't look like it'll have that much of an impact, anyway.

 

Just hope they never ever even CONSIDER factoring in airplay. :lol:

Edited June 22, 201411 yr by Jade

More info:

 

Hi @JackSargeson1 we will still be mentioning what a song has sold, but now we can also tell you how many times it's been streamed too

 

They also say there no danger of adding Airplay at this point in time

 

@gavindeejay We don't like to think of you fiddling Gavin. Streams are capped per user account or IP address at a set number per day.

 

@metaboatchris All audio streams - both paid and ad-funded.

That seems like a very fair ratio and won't be too sudden a change, a bit like when downloads were first added in 2004/2005 when they didn't affect the chart massively (just look at the 2004 download chart number 1s!). I do think that as the years go on as sales fall and streams rise, the ratio will be raised, but it will hopefully feel more 'natural' than sudden.

 

If anything, though it won't affect the top half that much, I think it could be useful in cutting down on 'non number 1' chart runs.

 

 

 

On the prospect of ever adding airplay they said

@officialcharts: @RobinJuanPersie I don't think there's any danger of that!

The streaming : sales ratio is very balanced now. Give it five years and we'll see if the impact is still minimal, but that can be dealt with at the time.

 

People need to calm the fuck down. "THE CHART IS CORRUPT OMG" - get a grip, dear lord. The chart couldn't be much more corrupt than it is now as is and the idea that record labels have more control over streaming than they do sales is laughable.

Also, streaming is a natural progression and DOES reflect the public's listening habits, airplay does not and never will do this. We're not a faux-Orwellian society yet~

Edited June 22, 201411 yr by Chez Wombat

So 100 streams = 1 single sale.

So even if a song is streamed a million times, that's only 10k sales. Shouldn't impact the top end that much at all, good good.

I'm very happy about this - this was my main concern about streaming being added: how streaming would be combined with sales and whether streaming would literally take over.

 

Big shame about the certifications though.

It is in terms of comparing with other songs, but it does need to be done if "sales" are going to get bigger.

 

I just hope they don't reset sales for songs pre-July 2014 as far as certifications are concerned - by this I mean with songs released pre-1989 (the last time certifications were updated), they could sell 200k in the download era and they would have a Silver certification rather than that 200k adding on to its overall total (it may have sold 400k before 1989 so should technically be certified Platinum). I don't think I've explained that very well tbh! :P

Also, streaming is a natural progression and DOES reflect the public's listening habits of the masses, airplay does not and never will do this. We're not a faux-Orwellian society yet~

 

I really will never understand why Billboard (and other world charts) genuinely consider airplay to be an indicator of popularity. They're literally saying 'radio executives think this is popular therefore it's popular'. Thankfully the OCC are sensible about this.

I'm dreading this if I'm honest, but I remember I felt the same about downloads being included in 2005 so I'll try and give it a chance.

 

Argh, Sia will be bumped down in her release week I guess. :(

'@officialcharts: @davidsh_8 Panic not, David. We will still have breakdowns of both sales and streaming. But if the chart is to continue to be the UK's...'

 

yay a breakdown of sales/streams. im beginning to be more open to the change now. the cahrt should be great that week

Edited June 22, 201411 yr by jsilv

I was completely against this, but with the news of the 100:1 ratio I'm not too bothered for the time being.

 

If this means OA/OS releases in the UK, then my opinion has changed completely and I am excited as heck. My iTunes balance would go from £25 to £0 in a flash.

 

Indeed, I am very excited to see what these new release strategies are that the OCC are tweeting about. I think it's more likely to just be making songs available to stream OA/OS rather than being available to purchase OA/OS as I've noticed a few upcoming releases (such as 'If I Go') being available on Spotify already which I assume wasn't usually the case.

 

Songs being available on streaming sites before download sites could lead to some big climbs to #1 (and potentially the total eradication of #1 debuts, although I doubt all record labels would do the 'OA/OS streaming' thing anyway so maybe not).

I do hope it is OA/OS and not on air/available to stream. Because what would really be the point in the latter?

 

I can already imagine chart runs like 78-76-67-01-01

that's just spotify there's deezer, napster, o2, xbox, sony, & rara as well~

 

I'm just going by the main article that said only nine songs this year have had 1m streams in a single week (they must mean overall, they didn't stipulate that it was only one platform).

 

As an aside I wonder what they mean by looking out for changes to record label release strategies? And surely some record labels that are currently not on streaming sites are going to have to get on them asap, or they'll suffer every week until they do.

Are many non-album new singles available for streaming pre-release? I don't really use streaming sites at the moment so wouldn't know. I have Deezer with my phone contract but I rarely touch it.