Top 40 to include streamed music

As well as consider unlimited download services

23 June 2009 11:16 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The Top 40 will soon include music that is streamed online, the Official UK Charts Company has revealed.

The rise in popularity of services such as Spotify, We7 and the older Last.fm, as well as subscription-based models like Nokia's Comes with Music, that lets users stream music for free, or download unlimited tracks, means these listener figures will one day be incorporated into the official Top 40.

The BBC reports that the Official UK Charts Company said "it was 'bound to' include streaming and subscription services at some point, but not for at least another year".

Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot told the BBC that the streaming services will make the charts, "increasingly more complicated", as the organisation debates over whether such tracks should carry equal weight with ones that people have paid full price to download.

Streams and subscription downloads will be integrated when they become "a very big part of the way people consume music going forward", Talbot said.

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Comments

  • Hmmm. as most 'streaming services' only provide music from major record labels, how on Earth can these charts be representative?

    Whilst Spotify as a medium is very good I can never find anything I like on it.

    At present, I find the service next to useless and probably detrimental to up and coming and even established independent musicians that don't want to line the pockets of greedy execs of big corporate entities. I can also see a state where only a few famous names will regularly get to the top because there'll be less chance to be exposed to new artists (via radio and tv for example).

    In any case, this is where the future of music lies. I just dearly hope Spotify and others recognise that there's a significant section of people out there that do not want to listen to 'top 40 pop/rock/soul down the years' and start to provide better for them.
    Posted by Dale, UK
  • Bahh, top 40 and all the others are out now... house/dirty house etc... is what everyone is getting into now... its the way forward!

    besides who listens to the top 40 exept on the way to work on the radio in the car...
    Posted by Paul, Middlesbrough, UK

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