back to article BPI fiddles with music consumption figures while revenues burn

The BPI reckons music consumption rose four per cent in the first half of 2015, thanks to a string of best-selling albums. But how do you measure an album's sales when a lot of your audience is streaming, or has YouTube on in the background? The music industry has started to use a new metric it calls Album Equivalent Sale ( …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    14.3 billion seems low.

    "An estimated 14.3 billion tracks were video streamed last year..."

    Was that the same year when Gangnam Style broke the youtube counter with over 2 billion plays? That gives one track about 15% of the market share. Did kids really like it that much?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      by the same count

      Rick Astley's - Never Gonna Give You Up, will be the most popular song of all time.

  2. Elmer Phud

    Familiar?

    Using the same calculations to re-score the 'unemployed' lists?

  3. Stephen Wilkinson

    I'd replace/buy albums I don't already have if they were say £3 a download for an album produced in the 60's or 70's rather than £7 or £8 quid

    1. montyburns56

      Google Music often have good deals on older albums with many being available for £2 or less, although it's usually pretty mainstream stuff.

  4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Accuracy?

    Yeah, we've heard of it.

    There must be some clever creative stats going on here since streaming counts make no differentiation between the same person listening multiple times to the same song over time, or a different person using the same device, eg multiple people in a house. A film or TV show is less likely to be streamed multiple times, especially by the same person, but music is very much a repeatable experience.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Accuracy?

      If they're trying to track the popularity of a song/album/artist then the streaming figures are actually more accurate than knowing how many records were sold.

      If someone buys a CD, you then have no idea if they played it once, or many times, or just ripped it to MP3 and resold it on eBay.

      It all depends on what they want to use the numbers for. I do agree though that it's a bit dodgy trying to conflate physical sales, digital sales and streaming.

  5. JonnyBravo

    Y u so frequently no image attribution?

    Often the story image is well-chosen and I'd like to follow it to its source.

    Not an even an alt tag on this Banksy image. Having to check the image filename for clues does not a great experience make.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Reverse image search FTW!

      (but attribution wouldn't go amiss elReg)

    2. dotdavid

      Maybe Banksy posted it on El Reg in the same way he does his more usual pieces?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Maybe this one's actually a cunningly produced fake.

  6. John Lilburne

    Subscription bah!

    Why would I ever want to do this subscription thing? Ten of the last dozen CDs I've bought aren't on Apple iTunes, hardly any of the last 20 CDs that are avilable on iTunes generate Genius playlists. Those that do are invariable useless unless one is basing it on 30 year old pop. Even the classical stuff (Beethoven) have unavailable playlists.

    The subscription services throw you entirely on to the mercies and vaguries of the tech company providing the service. In general there business needs are not the same as yours, and services get messed with from time to time in order to attract new customers. Official support is relegated to 'helpful' users, who generally can't answer a damn thing. Take a look at any of the tech company forums and see how many are actually answering or fixing issues. How threads on those forums have zero replies? How many have the same issues raised year after year without resolution.

    With music at least you have a CD/LP in your possession and the digital files, and you can arrange your own mixes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Subscription bah!

      Reg Commentard in shock "pah this doesn't apply to me" outrage! You're not the target audience believe it or not; just because you don't buy streamed music, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist; the very fact that it is not available in digital format suggests it's unlikely to worry the chart compilers anyway.

      When will people on this forum finally understand that computers aren't just command line driven beig boxes in back offices any more? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the ship has sailed - other people, beyond our rarified profession now use computers and the services they offer for non-IT things. Some of them with graphical user interfaces. They may not be optimised to the nth degree, security may be shocking and there may be more flashing lights and pastel colours than are strictly necessary but they exist, they work and the are earning people shit-tons of cash. Get. Over. It.

      1. John Lilburne

        Re: Subscription bah!

        They aren't earning anyone any money except for the streaming execs that are extracting millions from over blown share prices, and a handful of the top chart artists. Everyone else is being screwed.

  7. phil dude
    FAIL

    saturation....

    Let me bang a drum. There is more music than anyone could ever listen to.

    These companies need to hire some decent statisticians and instead calculate the ratio of new/old music consumed. That would give a better idea of the future rather than the wishful thinking that drives their greedy lawsuits.

    P.

  8. Graham Marsden
    Facepalm

    "how do you measure an album's sales...

    "...when a lot of your audience is streaming, or has YouTube"

    The same way you calculate how much "piracy" is costing the music industry: You make up a large figure, multiply it by another large monetary amount, then get the media to publish it unquestioningly...

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