Will this finally be the week that something stays at number 1 for a second week? \u00a0The midweeks say no! \u00a0iTunes says yes! \u00a0Let’s find out!<\/p>\n
But the bigger news by far is the announcement that\u00a0streaming data will finally be added to the chart from the start of July. \u00a0That makes this the penultimate chart to be based entirely on sales, after over fifty years. \u00a0But\u00a0I’m all for including streaming; it reflects\u00a0what listeners are choosing to hear, and the rise of streaming services spawns an audience who have no logical reason to\u00a0buy<\/em> singles any more.<\/p>\n The question is how you weight it, which in turn begs the question of what exactly we’re supposed to be measuring here. \u00a0Leave aside\u00a0the fact that the chart exists primarily because the record industry considers it a useful promotional tool;\u00a0that usefulness still stems from the perception that it actually measures something.<\/p>\n The weighting is going to be one hundred streams to one sale. \u00a0What, then, are we measuring? \u00a0Not “the most listened to record”, since that would involve airplay. \u00a0Is it the record that\u00a0the largest number of people are choosing to listen to? \u00a0Not that either, since I don’t think many singles are listened to one hundred times. \u00a0On the other hand,\u00a0since most streaming services are either advert-supported or flat rate,\u00a0there’s another complication, namely that people will stream tracks\u00a0that they don’t necessarily like all that much, just to find out what they sound like. \u00a0I certainly do. \u00a0Is the chart measuring the tracks that are making the most money for their creators? \u00a0Again, certainly not at a ratio of one\u00a0hundred streams equals one sale.<\/p>\n The honest answer is that what we’re going to end up with is a sales chart modified by streaming data. \u00a0The most popular streaming tracks do somewhere in the 1-1.5m range a week; that will translate into 10-15,000 in sales, which is enough to get you to the bottom end of the top 10. \u00a0But of course most of those tracks are high up the chart already. \u00a0The most notable effect will probably be to slow the chart down;\u00a0the Official Streaming Chart (which\u00a0has existed\u00a0for a while now) gets little or no attention, because it moves like treacle. \u00a0We’re talking here about a chart which has had four number ones all year (due to\u00a0Clean Bandit and Mr Probz both having multi-month reigns), where “Happy” is still in the top 10, and where\u00a0“Do I Wanna Know” by the Arctic Monkeys has just celebrated a year in the top 40.<\/p>\n A logical case could be made for treating streaming as\u00a0more<\/em> important than downloads, since it’s the bigger audience. \u00a0But the result would be\u00a0a chart so painfully\u00a0boring that nobody would pay it any attention. \u00a0Which, for the industry and the compilers,\u00a0would jeopardise the point of the exercise. \u00a0Hence the uneasy compromise era we’re about to enter.<\/p>\n