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The UK’s Official Charts Company has just announced that albums listened to over streaming services will be included in measuring chart success.
If you’re getting a bit of déjà vu from this story, that’s because the Charts Company announced back in June that plays of singles would be included in the rankings.
Now albums will also be included, with a host of top streaming services already on board with the stats haul.
Spotify and Deezer are the headline acts, but Google Play, Napster, Xbox Music, Rdio, Rara, and O2 Tracks will all be provided information to the Charts Company.
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You might be wondering how it plans to work out just how streamed content from albums equates to physical album purchase by this point. Well the Official Chart Company has it all worked out.
First off, it takes the 12 most popular individual tracks from an album across the streaming services.
The top two tracks will have their popularity adjusted depending on what the next 10 tracks average out at. These figures are then added up and divided by 1000, which will give a ‘stream factor’.
This stream factor will be added onto physical and digital sales, giving a rough estimate of how popular an entire album is with the UK public.
The system is set to go live on February 23, which will see the first chart of March making use of the newly added streaming stats.