Okay, this will seem like a silly post but-

 

I've been checking the "stream equivalent sales" of No.1s since the 150:1 ratio was implemented in 2017. And I've used the ratio to find out how many streams a song got in a week based on those sales, and some of them do not match at all.

 

For e.g. Sprinter was said to have got 107,744 streaming units on its 1st week which came from 13.4 million streams. However, if we're doing the 150:1 ratio, that will only give you 89k streaming units. 107k would mean you got 16 million streams. I also checked songs like Easy On Me, Please Please Please, 7 rings, I Don't Care and the same situation occurred.

 

I also looked at No.1s from the 100:1 ratio era and this was never a problem, the calculation made sense.

 

So is it's either that I can't do maths or Sales week/OCC can't do maths.

 

Like, how are they actually carrying out this chart ratio?

the ratio is 100 or 600 depending on premium/free, not 150

It's been 1:100 (premium) and 1:600 (free) for a while now, they changed it at some point in 2017

It's been 1:100 (premium) and 1:600 (free) for a while now, they changed it at some point in 2017

oh okay, thanks

^ 1 July 2018 they changed it I believe.

 

They never tend to disclose how many of a song’s streams are at the premium 1:100 rate and how many are at the 1:600 rate. What we do know is that all YouTube and other video streams are classed as free. On Spotify it depends whether you have a pay monthly account or not. All Apple streams are classed as premium I believe - not sure if that’s also true of Amazon. But there’s such a stark difference between the two ratios that it really can make a difference to how something does on the charts. It tends to be hip hop and younger acts who really suffer from a lot of their Spotify streams being on free accounts.

you can also have Premium on Youtube, I think?

Oh I guess so - maybe that’s starting to contribute more then.

Basically free streams are penalised so heavily that unless they’re astronomical (eg “Baby Shark”) they won’t have much effect on the chart.