U.K. CHARTS ADD SOUNDCLOUD STREAMS

SoundCloud licensed and monetized on-demand plays are now counted in the U.K.’s Official Singles and Albums Charts, giving the most popular artists on the platform a shot at entering the Top 100. The new rules apply from this week’s chart onward.

Streams eligible for chart impact will take place on SoundCloud Go and Go+ subscription tiers, as will official tracks that have been identified for monetization on its free, ad-supported offering.

“SoundCloud is the foundational music platform for creators and we are committed to empowering them with the best tools and services to grow their careers,” said Raoul Chatterjee, Director, Content Partnerships at SoundCloud. “Charts are a great measure of success for creators, and we’re excited their SoundCloud streams will now count toward the UK and Ireland’s Official Charts.”

Since June, 100 subscription streams have equaled one single sale on the Official Singles Chart, as do 600 “free” streams. The formula applies to audio and video after YouTube views were added to the Singles Chart in January.

As for albums, the Official Charts counts the 12 most streamed tracks from the standard version of an album, on both premium and freemium tiers, and down-weights the top two songs in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams are then divided by 1,000 and added to the album's physical and digital sales.

We’d like to explain further but we ran out of fingers and toes trying to do this math.