The New Zealand Top 40 singles chart is changing the way it decides who is at number one.
From now on it will also include data from streaming websites like Spotify.
Streaming has earned its place because it now accounts for around 10 percent of music revenue in New Zealand.
We used to just buy CDs and downloads, but now New Zealanders stream 3 million tracks a day.
"Streaming has really grown from strength to strength over the past couple of years and so we want to reflect that in the single charts," says Recorded Music NZ's Damian Vaughan.
From Friday, the singles chart will include tracks streamed on Spotify, Xbox Music and Google Play, as well as sales from other sources like iTunes and shops.
There are 45 songs that have been streamed more than 1 million times in New Zealand. Lorde's 'Royals' has been streamed more than 2 million times.
Ed Sheeran is the most streamed artist in New Zealand, followed by Eminem and then Lorde – each of them streamed more than 10 million times.
But it's someone else whose song has just become the first to be streamed more than 100,000 times in one week – Taylor Swift's 'Shake it Off'.
But just as the New Zealand charts are embracing streaming, Swift has pulled her entire back catalogue from Spotify.
The Beatles and ACDC are among those who say royalty rates on Spotify are too low.
Artists typically get under 1 cent for each track played, but Spotify says repeated playing of songs mean those royalties can quickly add up and 70 percent of revenue goes to the rights holders.
Sheeran thinks streaming has helped his career.
"Me playing Glastonbury, at the end of the week I played to a crowd that knew all the words to all the songs that had only come out that weekend," the singer says. "It is because they were going on and Spotifying and listening, and it really helps an album get out there."
Streaming is not the same as paying to download a song that you get to keep.
Every 175 streams of a song will count the same as one paid download when deciding who is at number one.
3 News
source: newshub archive
