Options
UK Singles Chart - Comparing Sales and Streaming - Discussion thread
StratusSphere
Posts: 2,813 Forum Member
✭✭✭
So I recently became aware that the singles chart now has two main charts, Official UK Singles Chart which is made up of all the sales + all the streaming, and Official UK Singles Sales Chart, which is now the secondary chart, and which just counts sales to give positions in the top 100.
So I thought I'd make a thread where we can discuss this phenomenon, in general, every week (maybe/hopefully!) and compare and contrast where a song's charting on streaming and where it's charting based just on sales.
Maybe work out when the best time to release a song is; in order to take advantage of the new mechanics; or just have a look at how broad some of the contrasts can be!
One that sticks out at me right away from this week's chart is the placing of Bastille's 'Pompeii'.
Now consider firstly that every ten streams counts as one single sale, or the equivalent of one.
In the Singles Sales Chart, 'Pompeii' comes in at #96 this week, up from #102. Whereas, in the 'Official Singles Chart', the same song, 'Pompeii' comes in at #57, up from #61. So in this instance, its place in the new 'Official Singles Chart' is being buoyed up almost entirely by streaming, which is causing it to stick around!
I wonder how the new mechanic will work for chart statistics in the future...
Anyway, what are your thoughts? views? things you notice about this? Let's get a discussion going.
So I thought I'd make a thread where we can discuss this phenomenon, in general, every week (maybe/hopefully!) and compare and contrast where a song's charting on streaming and where it's charting based just on sales.
Maybe work out when the best time to release a song is; in order to take advantage of the new mechanics; or just have a look at how broad some of the contrasts can be!
One that sticks out at me right away from this week's chart is the placing of Bastille's 'Pompeii'.
Now consider firstly that every ten streams counts as one single sale, or the equivalent of one.
In the Singles Sales Chart, 'Pompeii' comes in at #96 this week, up from #102. Whereas, in the 'Official Singles Chart', the same song, 'Pompeii' comes in at #57, up from #61. So in this instance, its place in the new 'Official Singles Chart' is being buoyed up almost entirely by streaming, which is causing it to stick around!
I wonder how the new mechanic will work for chart statistics in the future...
Anyway, what are your thoughts? views? things you notice about this? Let's get a discussion going.
0
Comments
This is just the beginning, and it's going to keep increasing over time as sales decrease and more people use streaming sites. Wouldn't be surprised if by next decade streaming will be accounting for 90% of "sales".
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it will make the charts very, very slow moving, and they're already pretty slow as it is.
Over 50% of 'sales' already. Wow.
And sales are high anyway.
Having said that; I think the chart should rename itself to 'Top 100 Songs' or something similar; 'Singles' is misleading when the lower regions of the chart has every single song from Ed Sheeran's last album, and when 50% of the chart isnt even singles sold.
That's how people use it anyway; the majority of people I know that use streaming don't use it as a replacement for buying or downloading music or CDs; but just as background noise, or to listen to music that you might not necessarily want to buy - and the move to streaming from radio is one forced by the fact that many radio stations' playlists are very limited/not as varied as they used to be; or as varied as we grew up with.