Image via Ollyy/Shutterstock
Ireland’s official singles chart is catching up with the times and will now include streaming data in its rankings.
From the latest top 100 released on Friday, 11 July, the first artist in Irish chart history to hit the No 1 spot based on both sales and streaming is The X Factor’s Ella Henderson.
Under these new metrics, 100 streams of a song counts as equal to a single purchase. Streams coming from Spotify, the biggest streaming partner in the Irish market, as well as other services such as Deezer, Xbox and Qobuz are tracked and counted towards the final chart listing. Discussions are also taking place to include streams from services provided by Google, Sony and Rdio.
To be counted as a valid stream, the track must be played for at least 30 seconds – the same rules applied to the UK singles chart, which began including streaming data last month.
The Irish singles chart is compiled by GfK Chart-Track, whose latest figures show that streaming music activity trebled in the period between July 2013 and July 2014.
“Streaming is still in its relative infancy, but we’re seeing people embrace it at a rapid pace,” said Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) chair Willie Kavanagh. “It’s an exciting time to be part of such a transformative industry. These new charts will be able to reflect a deeper insight to what the Irish public is listening to and, in turn, provide interesting research for the music industry.”
This isn’t the first time the Irish music charts have had to adapt to consumers’ habits, with download sales added to the metrics in 2006.
According to GfK Chart-Track, the 50 most-streamed tracks in Ireland amount to about 1.4m streams per week across all platforms.
Music image by Ollyy via Shutterstock
