The BPI’s famous Certified Awards Programme, which awards Platinum, Gold and Silver disc certification status to music recordings as they achieve particular sales milestones, now includes streaming data from audio services alongside download and physical format sales for singles.
As a result of the inclusion of this streaming data for the first time, more than 80 singles have either been awarded Silver certification or have been upgraded to Gold, Platinum or 2x Platinum status.
Newly certified titles on this list include:
* Silver (200,000 sales equivalent units):
* ranging from such classics as Dolly Parton’s Jolene and The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter
* two Britpop anthems Oasis’ Champagne Supernova and Catatonia’s Road Rage
* and more recent chart hits including Arctic Monkeys’ R U Mine, David Guetta’s Shot Me Down and Aaliyah Try Again.
* a nice coincidence also sees McFly’s Five Colours in Her Hair and Busted’s Crashed the Wedding both go Silver at the same time.
Gold (400,000 units):
* Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z Drunk In Love, One Direction Best Song Ever, Gary Barlow Let Me Go and Calvin Harris Summer.
Platinum (600,000 units):
* Pink So What, Taylor Swift We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Katy Perry Dark Horse and Coldplay Fix You.
2x Platinum (1.2m units):
* Jessie J ft. Bob Price Tag, Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne Rather Be, Passenger Let Her Go and David Guetta ft. Sia Titanium.
Inclusion of the streaming data in the certified awards has been backdated to Week 1 at the start of 2014 to ensure it remains consistent with the Official Charts database1. Streams are being converted using the same ratio that the Official Charts Company is using to integrate streams into the Official Singles Chart (100 streams = 1 sale).
The effect of including streaming data on the performance of singles within the Certified Awards Programme can depend on a number factors, including the release date of the track ‘ generally the older the song, the less impact there is likely to be, while recent hits are typically seeing more of a boost. For example, while streaming accounts for just 1 per cent of sales of Jessie J’s Price Tag, which was released over three years ago on 31 January 2011, a fifth ‘ 20 per cent ‘ of Clean Bandit’s Rather Be, which came out earlier this year on 17 January, is made up of streams. Going forward, this trend is likely to accelerate.
The move to include streams in the certified awards data for Singles was planned in conjunction with the Official Charts’ decision to include streaming data in the Official Singles Chart, starting with the chart just announced this Sunday, 6th July, which saw Ariane Grande’s Problem ft. Iggy Azalea become the first UK chart No.1 to be made up of sales and streams. There has been a huge surge in streaming by music consumers in recent months and over the past year – in 2013 alone there were 7.4 billion streams, up 100 percent on 2012, and the figure for 2014 is expected to at least double.
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