The BBC Radio 1 top 40 UK singles chart is to undergo the biggest upheaval in its 62-year history, including data on the most-played digital tracks from Spotify and other streaming services for the first time.
The move, which has previously been resisted by music industry executives, will break the historic link between buying a piece of music and its position in the Sunday afternoon sales rundown broadcast on Radio 1.
The UK's current No 1, Rather Be by Clean Bandit, recently beat Daft Punk's Get Lucky to become the most-streamed song in a single week on Spotify. It was played 1.09m times in seven days, with a total of more than 3m streams on the service since its release.
The Official Charts Company, which oversees the official UK top 40, launched a separate streaming chart two years ago but last year said it had no plans to incorporate streaming data into its UK charts.
George Ergatoudis, the Radio 1 head of music, revealed the change at an industry event in London this week ahead of the Brit awards, the UK music industry's biggest night of the year.
Radio 1 declined to comment further on the change, but Ergatoudis later tweeted: "Not just Spotify, other music streaming services will be included."
A spokeswoman for the Official Charts Company said on Tuesday: "We've always said we are monitoring the rise of streaming as a form of consumption, but nothing has changed. Streaming is growing fast, so we are looking at it, but we are currently going through the 'how', before we work out the 'when'."
In 2013 7.4bn songs were streamed in the UK in 2013, double the figure for the previous year, generating revenues of £103m.
David Joseph, the chief executive of Universal Music, the UK's biggest music company, has said that the top 40 risked becoming irrelevant if it did not include streaming.
It is expected the streams will be "weighted" so they account for less than a paid-for download in the charts, to prevent purchased music being swamped by streaming sites such as Spotify and Deezer.
But it remains to be seen how much weight the revamped chart will give to a stream of a song as opposed to a purchase, whether as a download or CD.
Tim Ingham, editor of trade magazine Music Week, said: "It's very difficult to compare because a stream itself can be quite fleeting, the consumer can use it as a preview of an artist's work, as opposed to a download which is more of a commitment, a monetary commitment. That is all to be worked out."
The UK's official singles chart has been a purely sales-based chart since it launched in 1952. The US Billboard chart has incorporated streaming data since 2007 and began taking account of YouTube streams last year.
"The growth in streaming consumption continues and this is an absolutely vital step to keep the charts as relevant as possible," Ingham said. "The bigger step will be to integrate YouTube data into the official chart, which is a much more difficult challenge because the data isn't as robust or easily quantifiable.
"But the fact of the matter is that YouTube is the way teenagers and young people access and listen to music and that will have to be accounted for. If it is not, then the public will care less and less about what is number one."
The move signals a change of policy from the Official Charts Company's stance in early 2013, when its managing director Martin Talbot told the BBC: "With singles sales at an all-time high, there are no plans to incorporate streaming information in the UK."
Tale of two lists
Top 10 most streamed tracks on Spotify UK in 2013
Pompeii – Bastille
Get Lucky – Daft Punk
Let Her Go – Passenger
Radioactive – Imagine Dragons
Can't Hold Us – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke
Thrift Shop – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Wake Me Up – Avicii
Ho Hey – The Lumineers
La La La – Naughty Boy
Top 10 selling singles of 2013, according to the Official Charts Company
Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke
Get Lucky – Daft Punk
Wake Me Up – Avicii
Let Her Go – Passenger
La La La – Naughty Boy
Roar – Katy Perry
Thrift Shop – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Just Give Me A Reason – Pink
Counting Stars – Onerepublic
Mirrors – Justin Timberlake
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