I hadn’t planned on writing three blog
posts in a row about how music consumption is changing. But it’s becoming more
apparent that 2014 will be remembered as the year when internet streaming took
over as the clear favorite way to listen to music, elbowing its way past a
relatively new format – buying digital downloads – and older physical media,
such as compact discs and vinyl LPs, which are still occupy a niche.
The latest news in this evolution came Nov.
19, when Billboard, which has been tracking music popularity since before there
were records or tapes, announced it will make a major expansion into the
digital realm. The entertainment magazine made this announcement on its website:
“The Billboard 200 albums chart
will premiere its biggest upgrade in more than 23 years, transforming from a
pure sales-based ranking to one measuring multi-metric consumption.
“Beginning with the top 10 revealed on
Wednesday, Dec. 3, on Billboard.com … the chart, which currently tracks the top
200 albums of the week by sales alone, will be the first to include on-demand
streaming and digital track sales (as measured by Nielsen Entertainment) by way
of a new algorithm. It is the most substantial methodology update since May
1991, when Billboard first used Nielsen's point-of-sale data --
SoundScan -- to measure album sales.”
“The new methodology aims to provide a
better sense of an album's popularity by reflecting not just sales, but
consumption activity,” says Billboard.
Billboard has already been counting
streaming sources for songs. Its Hot 100 chart of song rankings is based on
digital download sales, radio airplay, and internet streaming. But until now
album ratings have been based solely on sales. The updated chart will calculate
album equivalents for downloads and streaming music by using “accepted industry
benchmarks”: 10 digital track sales from an album, or 1,500 song streams from
an album, will be considered the equal of one album sale.
Billboard first started reporting on
music sales more than 100 years ago, according to Wikipedia. In 1913, the
magazine ran charts for sheet music sales and top songs in Vaudeville theaters.
Billboard’s announcement is another sign
of the growing consumption of internet streaming of music. Over the first half
of 2014, streaming music’s share of total music consumption almost equaled
physical formats such as CDs and vinyl. Streaming had 27 percent of total
consumption, physical formats 28 percent. Digital downloads led both of those
formats with 41 percent. But consumption of streaming music is growing rapidly,
while downloads and CDs are going the other direction. Nearly 80 percent of
music fans say they have streamed music in the past six months, according to a
Nielsen Entertainment.
For this longtime music fan, making the
switch to a new musical format isn’t new. Since the late 1960s, I’ve consumed
music as vinyl LPs, 45-rpm singles, eight-track tapes, cassette tapes, and
compact discs. In the early ‘90s I converted a huge collection of vinyl (1,000
LPs) to compact disc. This year, I’ve been busy ripping a collection of 2,000
CDs, converting them into lossless FLAC files on a computer hard drive.
About the time I finish that chore,
everyone will be listening to streaming music.
Anybody else out there playing catch-up?
Sources:
Billboard 200 Makeover:
Album Chart to Incorporate Streams & Track Sales. Nov. 19, 2014. Accessed
at billboard.com website:
No comments:
Post a Comment