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Streaming To Be Included In The Singles Chart
From BBC Entertainment News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26238575
I'm not too keen on this idea as I think the charts will get very stale in time. Not only that what's to stop people playing a track on a loop for days on end. Will they only get 1 play per week per user counted or something?
The head of music at Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra has said streaming will soon be included in the top 40 singles chart.
Speaking at a Radio Academy event in London, George Ergatoudis said play counts from services like Spotify and YouTube could be included as soon as this summer.
While countries such as the US and Germany already count music streams, the UK chart is based on sales alone.
The Official Charts Company says there is no firm date set for the change.
Chief executive Martin Talbot told the BBC the company was still working out the "how" and "when" behind the plans.
In the UK, music streaming increased by 33.7% in 2013 and now accounts for nearly 10% of revenues from recorded music. In the last year 7.4 billion songs were streamed via premium or ad-funded music services.
Daft Punk's Get Lucky was the most streamed track of 2013 in the UK, ahead of Bastille's Pompeii and Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines.
Last year was also a fifth successive record year for British singles sales, up 6% to 188.6m with the vast majority - 99.6% - accounted for by digital downloads.
Speaking in Music Week last week, Mr Talbot said: "We are beginning to look at this, as every market is - but we have a lot of due diligence to do before making what would be a significant jump in the UK."
He cited issues including what kind of streams should be counted and the possible impact on new and independent artists.
The company will also have to decide how many "plays" of a YouTube video or Spotify track would count as the equivalent of one sale.
There will also be questions about how long a user has to listen to a track before it is counted - some statisticians equate a 30-second stream to one play, others prefer only to count users who stream an entire song.
Mr Talbot's statement to Music Week was in response Universal Music UK boss, David Joseph, who told the magazine that the UK charts risk becoming irrelevant if they don't begin including streaming soon.
The Official Charts Company has previously explained that the UK chart methodology and market are both very different to America, where the Hot 100 takes into account radio airplay.
The company launched a separate Official Streaming Chart in 2012.
I'm not too keen on this idea as I think the charts will get very stale in time. Not only that what's to stop people playing a track on a loop for days on end. Will they only get 1 play per week per user counted or something?
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Will get? As in the charts can possibly get much more stale?
Will radio still not count?
Last year had Blurred Lines no1 for 10-12 weeks can't remember exactly, Royals was also no1 there for awhile
But I'm cool with it's it will make the chart more exciting as the Big Top 40 now seems more popular than R1
Any step towards that is a bad one, imo.
It would push acts to make better music not just appealing to one group but to the whole audience, the days of a boyband getting to number one would be slim unless they relay on YT views
Though a bad thing is that Capital might now control the chart as they tend to play the same songs on a loop & I expect Olly Murs to get lots of No1s as he gets airplay almost everywhere
If you really liked a song you'd buy it or download it illegally at least. I don't feel streaming is that reflective of the public's tastes. Although I say this as someone who doesn't use a streaming service.
When I do use Youtube for music, it's mainly to watch music videos and check out singers and bands. If I am using it to listen to a song, I will buy the song when I can. I prefer to "own" the song (although I suppose I only the rights to play the mp3 nowadays!)rather than having to go online to stream it.
I think that would only be the case if streaming accounted for the WHOLE chart. As it stands, if streaming accounts for roughly 10% of music revenue (as stated in that article) I can see no problem with counting streaming for - say - 10% or less of the chart positions.
The difficulty is obviously how many listens equals a "buy", and how many seconds equals a listen. I often stream a song via YouTube to hear what it's like and to decide whether I like it or not. What if (hypothetically) I decide a minute or so in that I don't like the track and will never listen to it again. I don't really think it's fair for that listen to then count towards the final chart position...? It's a tricky equation and balancing act.
Spotify doesn't work like that though and that's a completely legal way to enjoy music. Lots of Spotify users (myself included) pay a monthly rate - so we ARE paying for listening to the music. Just not going into our pockets for each individual track.
I agree there's a difference when it comes to YouTube etc. but not for streaming as a whole.
However, it is inevitable that sales are going to fall and eventually be eclipsed by streaming, so it will have to happen sooner or later.
I don't think the argument that it will make the chart slower is relevant - what's important is that it reflects popularity. If you can get into the top 40 selling 6,000 copies how is that truly reflective of popularity? And why should people who choose to stream all their music rather than download
That's a rather old-fashioned way of looking at it. If you pay for a Spotify subscription which gives you access to millions of songs on your computer and mobile, why would you need to "own" the file? There's going to be less and less reason to actually store files on your devices the faster and more accessible the Internet is
I think the ratio should be based on the percentage of money a song should make.
If Spotify pays out about 0.6 to 0.84 cents per song, then roughly 150 plays should equate to 1 purchase.
And if a song were to loop for a day it would still only equate to 3 purchases. (Although I would imagine limitations would be in place.)
Radio shouldn't count, as it's unfair to acts who don't get airplay.
Depends though. If Youtube streaming is included we could still get surprise top 40 hits and so on, but if it's just the Spotify kind of streaming it'll be mainstream Heart FM songs at #1 all year round. People like Martin Garrix, Bingo Players and Storm Queen wouldn't be making #1...
This is the issue the Hot 100 has in the US. Songs with high streaming power tend to hang around for ages. It also means other songs have slower climbs into the chart as the top 10 is less transient.
Billboard uses this scale for the Hot 100:
Sales: 1/12
Radio: 1/7,500
Streaming: 1/450
That means I have to stream a song 37.5 times to equal 1 purchase.
So let's look at the "the companies are just going to leave their computers overnight and stream!" bullshit:
Assume a 4 minute song. Assume a worst-case scenario of streaming from 5pm to 9am. So streaming for 16 hours a day, you'd get 240 streams.. or the equivalent of spending a whopping $6.40 on iTunes. Plus I would've downloaded 1.1 gigabytes of data during that time, which isn't exactly free.
I'd be far more effective to just buy a crapton of CDs off Amazon.
I don't want to have to rely on someone else's servers when I want to listen to music. Download or physical, I want all my music stored locally.
The beginning of the end of the charts started long ago.
Agreed. And before long they'll be including airplay too...until they've got the chart they want rather than a chart that has always reflected what the pople want as expressed through what they buy. All this marginalises even more the acts that don't get tons of mainstream coverage.
All the major streaming services already have precautions in place to mean people can't manipulate or spam streams anyway.
And a sales chart is easily rigged anyway. Over the years we've had dozens of Facebook campaigns getting songs into the charts. So I don't know why people are worried about it with streaming when it's always been happening with sales anyway.