Online audio streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and Xbox music will supply data to count towards the chart compilation process starting from 6th July, announced on the Official Charts Company website yesterday and also via a YouTube video featuring Bastille.
100 online streams of a song will count as equivalent to one single physical sale or a digital download purchased. Each track will also have to be played for 30 seconds and limited to 10 plays per user, per day.
Martin Talbot, Official Charts Company chief executive, says audio streaming “has grown at an extraordinary rate”, having doubled popularity in the UK between 2013 and 2014 and currently stands at 260 million streams a week. The company’s chairman Korda Marshall also added “the way the charts are compiled has changed many times over the last 50 years as the various technologies have developed. This is just one more important step on that road.”
A new Official Breakers Chart will also be launched to feature 10 fastest growing tracks of each week with an increase in sales and streams.
The first Official Singles Chart Top 40 to include streams will air on BBC Radio 1 on Sunday, 6th July.
Bastille’s ‘Pompeii’ is the most stream track of all time in the UK, but never actually reached number one in the UK official charts. Watch the band below reveal the news that streaming is soon to be included in the chart counts.
