In a move designed to properly gauge the listening habits of the UK public, the UK Official Charts from this month onwards will include audio streams in its singles chart compilations.

100 streams of a song on an audio streaming service such as Spotify, Deezer, or Napster (among others) will count as the equivalent to one single sale (download or physical single).  Listeners are limited to 10 streams per song per day, according to Official Charts Company boss, Martin Talbot, in an interview with NME:

Addressing concerns that the new system could be abused by fans or record labels setting up streams and leaving them playing on repeat, the OCC have capped the maximum number of eligible streams at ten per user per song per day. “We’re capping it at 10 streams per user per day, so an over-enthusiastic One Direction [or Jedward (ed.)] fan can’t just play their…