Although the iTunes chart is still in relatively good shape despite the recent inclusion of streaming, how long before we see a case for example an iTunes number 1 only reaching number 20 officially as sales evidently get lower and lower while streaming gets more popular? I would say best part of five years.

Edited October 7, 201410 yr by zenon

Prob soon enough although that will depend of the OCC regularly going back and reviewing the balance between streaming and sales so in the future less streams will inevitably equal 1 stream and so on. Unless the no1 stream is viewed something like 2 million times and that keeps increasing!

It'll be a long time before the iTunes chart is seen as 'irrelevant' I think. Especially in the top end where the sales:streaming ratio is currently larger in sales' favour.

 

I'd say 3-5 years before the Spotify chart is more relevant than the iTunes chart anyhow

Itunes may start streaming themselves soon, if that happens, then will the itunes chart be both streams and sales combined?

I hope not. I don't want to go back to the days when the official chart and the iTunes chart were pretty much the same which made things very predictable (moreso than now and the charts are quite predictable now)

I don't know, although we can use physicals as a model. In 2009 when I started following the charts, the charts were already very similar to iTunes, but I remember in 2009 and 2010 physicals would still boost some songs significantly (boy bands, Kylie Minogue, X Factor singles, etc.), so whilst they weren't really that important by that point, they weren't quite "irrelevent" either.

 

Perhaps by 2029/2010 it'll be similar with downloads 10 years before. They'll be insignificant most of the time, but for artists with strong fanbases, or charity singles, they'll give songs a boost, whilst "normal" songs won't sell much on iTunes anymore. I'm interested to know when record labels will just not bother releasing certain songs for download at all.

I'm not entirely sure downloads will ever go out of fashion as much as physicals have - streaming is quite a different method of consuming music, hence the divide of opinion on including it at all in here. The drop-off definitely won't be as quick as it was for physicals at least I think.

I think that eventually spotify will become so important that if artists want to stay relevant they will have to just release downloads much quicker than they are now or they will be irrelevant!