Following last year’s successful addition of the inclusion of streams into the Official Singles Chart, the Official Charts Company have confirmed that streams of albums will now be incorporated into the weekly Official Albums Chart.
According to The Official Charts company, the number of tracks streamed has almost doubled in the space of a year, with every day in January 2015 seeing 50 millions streams, and whilst the UK may not be the first global market to incorporate album listens into the sales chart, the methodology used will indeed be a world-first, and has been specifically-designed to ensure the rundown reflects the popularity of the albums themselves (rather than just the performance of one or two hit singles).
Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot said: “The Official Charts Company’s mission is to compile the most accurate, reliable and up-to-date charts around, and in 2015 that means reflecting the popularity of streaming, alongside downloads, vinyl and – still the most popular album format – the CD… Initial indications are that the impact on actual chart positions will be modest to begin with, but we expect this to grow as streaming becomes increasingly popular.”
In terms of analysis, Official Charts will take the 12 most streamed tracks from the standard version of the album, the top two songs will be down-weighted in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams will be divided by 1000 and added to the physical and digital sales of the album (the 1,000 ratio is used to reflect the broad difference in value between a track stream and the price paid for an album).
Data will start to be collected in less than a fortnight, with the first chart read set to take place on 1st March.
