The BPI's Platinum, Gold and Silver album certifications to include streams for the first time

The famous Platinum, Gold and Silver certifications awarded by the BPI in recognition of sales milestones will include audio streaming data from this week.

The first albums to benefit from the incorporation of streaming include Madonna’s 1983 eponymous debut, which today is awarded Silver for combined sales of over 60,000, Placebo’s Once More With Feelings (Platinum, sales over 300,000) and Bombay Bicycle Club’s So Long, See You Tomorrow (Gold, sales over 100,000).

Singles certifications in the UK have included streaming plays since July 2014. Both adopt the same approach and criteria that the Official Charts are use to calculate how streams contribute to an single or album’s sales performance (See full methodology here).

The inclusion of streaming plays in the BPI Awards system for albums is the result of a significant shift in the way music is consumed. The BPI recently announced that 14.8 billion audio streams were served across streaming services, including Spotify, Deezer and Google Play – up 98% on 2013’s total.

The growth in streaming is expected to continue this year, with over 475 million audio streams now taking place every week.