The Official Albums Streaming Chart is a

music chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

based plays of an

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...

's songs through

audio streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...

services (such as

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

Deezer Deezer is a French online music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels, as well as podcasts on various devices online or offline. Created in Paris, Deezer currently has 90 million licensed tracks in ...

Google Play Music Google Play Music is a discontinued music and podcast streaming service and an online music locker operated by Google as part of its Google Play line of services. The service was announced on May 10, 2011; after a six-month, invitation-only be ...

Tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

and

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

) in the United Kingdom. Introduced on 1 March 2015, it coincided with the

Official Charts Company The Official Charts (legal name: The Official UK Charts Company Limited) is a British inter-professional organization that compiles various "official" record charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France. In the United Kingdom, its charts in ...

's decision to incorporate streaming data into the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. The Official Albums Streaming Chart uses the same streaming sources as the

Official Audio Streaming Chart The Official Audio Streaming Chart (previously the Official Streaming Chart) is a music chart based on plays of songs through audio streaming services (including Spotify, Deezer, Google Play Music, Apple Music and Tidal) in the United Kingd ...

to measure how many times albums have been streamed each week. The formula for calculating the Official Albums Streaming Chart takes the total number of streams from the twelve most streamed tracks on the standard version of an album and subtracts the difference between the two most streamed tracks and the average of the rest (to avoid hit singles boosting album sales). This is equivalent to 12 times the average number of streams of the third to twelfth most streamed tracks. Official Charts Company chief executive Martin Talbot stated: "The Official Charts Company's mission is to compile the most accurate, reliable and up-to-date charts around, and in 2015 that means reflecting the popularity of streaming, alongside downloads, vinyl and – still the most popular album format – the CD. Initial indications are that the impact on actual chart positions will be modest to begin with, but we expect this to grow as streaming becomes increasingly popular." The first album to top the streaming chart was

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran (; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently re ...

's second album x, which topped the chart on 1 March 2015 with streaming sales of 3,369. Sheeran's third album '' ÷'' has spent the most weeks at number one on the chart, with 34 weeks as of December 2017, and the most consecutive weeks with 26.

Number ones

References

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