Radio 1’s Head of Music George Ergatoudis has said that streaming services will soon be included in the top 40 singles chart.
Speaking at a Radio Academy event in London, 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, however confirmed that the company were still working out the ‘how’ and ‘when’.
Streaming now accounts for nearly 10% of UK music revenues – over the past 12 months, 7.4 billion songs were streamed via premium or ad-funded music services, with Daft Punk’s Get Lucky being the UK’s most streamed track of 2013 in the UK.
The inclusion of streaming into the charts will surly be the last nail in the coffin for CD singles – in 2013, 99.6% of all single sales were digital downloads.
More as we hear it…
