2016 looks to be a year when the music industry undergoes severe remodeling. Acknowledging the fact of how rapidly music streaming services have grown in the past 2-3 years, it is safe to say that gone are the days when people were heavily dependent on downloading tracks by their favorite artists. And definitely so, these days, the audience is more indulgent in streaming tracks right off Spotify, SoundCloud or Apple Music which has even spread about the idea of sharing music on an even wider scale.
And to keep up with the current trend, The Recording Industry Association Of America(RIAA) have dropped by for some major reforms. The iconic association have announced that it will now recognize streaming towards Gold and Platinum certifications. Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO, RIAA commented on their latest reform saying,
“For nearly six decades, whether it’s vinyl, CDs, downloads or now streams, the Gold & Platinum Program has adapted to recognize the benchmarks of success in an evolving music marketplace. We know that music listening – for both for albums and songs – is skyrocketing, yet that trend has not been reflected in our album certifications. Modernizing our Album Award to include music streaming is the next logical step in the continued evolution of Gold & Platinum Awards, and doing so enables RIAA to fully reward the success of artists’ albums today.”
But, there’s a catch in how streams will be incorporated into the program of accounting for music sales. Read RIAA‘s statement below –
“After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors – including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program – and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues, the RIAA set the new Album Award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. Also effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since that ratio was set.”
Now let’s break it down shall we? If a track were to be solely dependent on streaming figures, it would take 1,500,000,000 plays to be certified 1X Platinum. This certainly doesn’t help the cause of electronic music to say the least considering there are only a handful of artists who have even broken the billion number mark. For now, we can just wait and watch as to how these new reforms change the certification game. You can read the full announcement here.
H/T : Your EDM