The Official Subscription Plays Chart was 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 on the number of plays of songs on subscription-based services in the United Kingdom. It was compiled weekly by 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 ...

(OCC), until November 2013. Each week's number one was published on a dedicated webpage of the OCC's official website—this webpage first went live in mid-2009.

History

The Official Subscription Plays Chart was launched for the first time on 22 September 2008, for a trial period of six months. Initially, it was solely based on digital plays from the subscription services

HMV Sunrise Records and Entertainment, trading as HMV (for His Master's Voice), is a British music and entertainment retailer, currently operating exclusively in the United Kingdom. The first HMV-branded store was opened by the Gramophone Company ...

, MusicStation, Napster and the

Nokia Music Store MixRadio was an online music streaming service owned by Line Corporation. The service was first introduced by Nokia in 2011 as ''Nokia Music'' for Windows Phone, serving as a successor to Nokia's previous Nokia Music Store/Comes with Music/Ovi ...

, all of which charged users a monthly fee. The data that these services supplied was compiled into a record chart of the 500 most-played tracks—each week also featured top-line market statistics. When first launched, the Official Subscription Plays Chart tracked between 3 million and 3.5 million digital plays per week (with a weekly average of more than 3.2 million), across a library of approximately 340,000 unique tracks. The first song to top the chart was "

I Kissed a Girl "I Kissed a Girl" is the debut single of American singer Katy Perry from her second studio album, '' One of the Boys'' (2008). It was released on April 28, 2008, by Capitol Records as the lead single from the record. Perry co-wrote the song wit ...

" by Katy Perry. As well as songs that were charting high in the companion

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

, the first ever Official Subscription Plays Chart also featured album tracks from records by bands such as

Elbow The elbow is the region between the arm and the forearm that surrounds the elbow joint. The elbow includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the cubital fossa (also called the chelidon, or the elbow pit), and the lateral and the me ...

The Verve The Verve were an English rock band formed in Wigan in 1990 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. Guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong later became a member in ...

and

Glasvegas Glasvegas are a Scottish indie rock band from Glasgow. The band consists of James Allan (vocals), Rab Allan (lead guitar) and Paul Donoghue (bass guitar), with Swedish drummer Jonna Löfgren joining the group in 2010 until her departure in 2020 ...

. According to the

British Phonographic Industry British Phonographic Industry (BPI) is the British recorded music industry's Trade association. It runs the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards, National Album Day, is home to the Mercury Prize, and co-owns the Official Charts Company with ...

, "the Official Subscription Plays Chart underlines the greater tendency to experiment among users of subscription services". In May 2012, the OCC launched 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 ...

which was (according to the OCC Facebook page) "a much broader panel of the biggest streaming services including Spotify and Deezer. It also counts all audio streams whether that be ad-funded (e.g. free Spotify accounts), and premium subscription account streams." The two charts ran alongside each other until November 2013 when the Subscription Plays Chart was scrapped and audio streams counted towards the

Official Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

from July 2014.

References

External links

Digital Plays Chart
at

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 inc ...

{{UK Music Charts British record charts

History

See also

References

External links