I have mentioned this as an option on UKMIX, but for those not connected with that forum, I will explain more here.

Firstly, it would be up to the OCC to do this, but I believe they could do it. It could be done as an extra chart even! The first thing is that sales would stop being based on UNIT sales, but on the retail price the public pays for each unit. This is fairly straightforward when it comes to most formats, but more difficult for streaming.

So instead of one download sale, it would be 0.99p or if they are reduced in price that price per unit. The same with 7- inch singles, 12- inch singles, cassettes etc. So if a 7-inch single is selling for £15.99p then it would count at that and not one unit as at present.

Now you can begin to see the difference. So ten downloads would only achieve sales of £9.90p. Where's the one 7- inch at £15.99 would easily beat them!

As I said, streaming is more difficult. Since you have to work out what everyone pays for each stream. I suppose that would have to be agreed between the streaming services and the OCC, or the BPI. Nevertheless, I do have a way of doing it.

So if a streaming service charges each customer £10.99p per month. According to one website, the average stream per household is 2,000 per month. So if you divide these figures, it comes in at £0.005495p per stream. Or simply £0.005p.

The OCC would have to be supplied with the streams for each price range. And the average streams per household would have to be agreed on.

The albums could also be done in the same way. I think the impact there would be greater than on the singles charts, since vinyl albums go for much greater money than a CD or download.

I have been monitoring the OCC sales for the last few months. With the figures Alan Jones gives us, when he breaks the down into the units, I can tell you that I don't think Alex Warren would have even made the top, since he has only been on streams and downloads and that generally is not enough to make a record top.

For example, on the 2 May:

(55) Oasis - 7,620 at £13.99p = £106,603.80p

(1) Alex - streams = £33,551.50p + Downloads = £2,118.60p

A Retail Sales chart would end the need for ACR, as streaming would not get its way all the time. Meanwhile, the physical singles would make the top 100 even selling low numbers of units, due to the higher price the public pays for such units. You only have to look at the OCC's own physical chart to see that records in the top ten are not making the 100.

By the way, the Retail Sales is not the same as what an artist gets.

I like the concept of this chart! It would be a good way for artists who can't seem to break through the glass ceiling of streaming - but have a decent-sized and loyal fanbase who buy physicals - to have a better chance of charting.

I'd imagine a limit in the number of eligible formats would need to continue being imposed. For instance recently when Chappell Roan released 5 x 7" vinyl singles of The Giver, only three of them contributed to the chart sales. Labels would probably go overboard if there was no restrictions on "high price + high sales = high chart position"!

Jeez can you imagine when huge artists like Taylor swift release the sales she would get if the charts were like this 😳

This is the way Germany calculates their charts I believe. I suspect they are not the only country either....

Edited Tuesday at 16:304 days by braindeadpj

I like this. Feels like it represents more what people are investing in, rather than having on in the background on a playlist, and that must be a good thing.

What do we think would be the effect at Christmas?

21 minutes ago, braindeadpj said:

This is the way Germany calculates their charts I believe.

For albums, yes but I don't know if it's also the case for singles.

I get Graham's point but I'm not sure it's the best solution : for example, an album can chart higher than another one because it's more expensive while it actually sold less units. You know what I mean ?

ACR is ridiculous because a chart-run single can be much better than the track really does in streaming/sales while another track isn't eligible to the top 100 because it's an old one. OCC should accept that a track can be a massive hit for weeks rather than giving a newer track a chance to get an unjustified #1.

Also, they should extend the limit to 5 tracks per artist in the top singles. For example, we saw the mess that generated the 3 tracks limit with Sabrina Carpenter whose tracks suddenly disappeared then reappeared, etc.

The same occured in Irish charts with Noah Kahan and Zach Bryan in the last weeks/months because of the mix between ACR and the 3 tracks limit.

Edited Tuesday at 17:134 days by D-P

A more expensive album would also be limited by the people that can afford to buy it. But a cheaper album will also sell more copies, in the reverse of that. Budget priced albums as far as I know are not allowed in the album charts. But under this system, selling more copies doesn't mean a higher position, so they can be included.

iTunes also discounts track downloads, selling them at 59p rather than 99p. This can affect the chart position selling more tracks as it is cheaper. But that affect is limited by the Retail Price Chart.

One thing the Retail Price chart does is put back the public back into contributing to streaming and making the chart. At the moment, nobody can solo get a sale on streaming, whereas if you download or buy a physical copy you count as one unit sale.

Since the chart would count all streaming and then assign the payment to what the user pays.

The current chart is acting like streaming is a digital download of 99p, adjusting the number of streams as the service grows. Thus making it look like that streams never existed. As more people streamed, they even adjusted the levels down so that it wouldn't look like massive amounts of units were being consumed.

Since Spotify actually produces a list of the weekly streams for the UK, you might be interested to see how the price relates to the streams. Based on the £0.005p figure.

The Number One = £15,076.30p

100 = £3,753.64p

Of course these figures could go up or down, if Spotify include advertisement funded tracks, or higher rate households.

Not certain how you would define the price of add funded streams?