A timeline: 10 years of streaming on the Official Chart

It's officially been 10 years since streaming was incorporated into the Official Singles Chart for the first time, as streaming changed modern music consumption forever.

Streaming has, in a sense, been the great leveller of the digital music age; in 2024, anyone, anywhere can reasonably release music and have it reach the widest audience possible, as well as increasing the amount of music (and types of music!) being consumed every single day.

Now, we're taking you on a journey that's been way more than a decade in the making - from digital music's humble beginnings, to streaming becoming the dominant mode of modern music consumption. This is the story of streaming on the Official Singles Chart.

A timeline - 10 years of streaming in The Official Chart

June 2004: iTunes UK & Europe launched

The launch of iTunes in the summer of 2004 marked the beginning of legitimate digital music in the UK. 32m singles were sold in 2004 across digital and physical.

Image: Getty

September 2004: The Official Download Chart arrived

Just a few months after the launch of iTunes in the UK, Official Charts launched a standalone Official Download Chart, ranking the best-sellers on the new digital download format. 

April 2005: Downloads included in the Official Singles Chart

When downloads first began to count in the Official Singles Chart, the condition stipulated that a record still had to be accompanied by a physical release too.

April 2006: Gnarls Barkley's Crazy makes history

Gnarls Barkley's Crazy becomes the first single to reach Number 1 on downloads alone.

A year later, Sugababes became the first UK act to secure a Number 1 single on purely digital downloads, when their (timeless classic!) About You Now topped the Official Singles Chart on Sunday September 30 2007.

MORE: The Top 100 biggest songs of the Official Chart streaming era

2009: Launch of Spotify UK

One small step for man...in 2009, the music service Spotify launched for the first time, allowing users to access a digital library of music - legitimately - from their desktop, and eventually their smartphone. 

May 2012: Introduction of the UK's first Official Streaming Chart

A standalone chart separate from the main Official Singles Chart, the Official Streaming Chart was the first UK chart ranking audio streams from both ad-funded and subscription streaming services in the UK, including Spotify and Napster (TIDAL launched in April 2014, Apple Music in June 2015). 

The first Official Streaming Chart Number 1 was Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, the chart is still compiled today and the current Number 1 is Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter.

End of 2012: A new record year for UK singles sales

In 2012 UK singles sales leapt to 188.6 million, with Gotye ft Kimbra's Somebody That I Used To Know named the best-selling single of the year.

A record nine singles became million-sellers in 2012, thanks to digital downloads propelling more singles to million-seller status than ever before. Just 76 singles had managed the feat by 2002, and ten years later that number had rocketed to 126.

Spring 2013: Daft Punk's Get Lucky is first song to generate 1 million streams in a week

These are the droids we're looking for! Daft Punk's funk-tastic comeback single may have looked to the past where their older material looked to the future, but Get Lucky's vintage aesthetic (bringing in Pharrell Williams and Chic's Nile Rodgers into its orbit) was an immediate success - peaking at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart for a straight month and making history as the first song ever to rack up 1 million UK streams in seven days.

End of 2013: UK streaming doubled

UK audio streaming consumption doubled in the space of a year, from 3.7 billion in 2012, to a cool 7.5 billion by the end of 2013. 

June 2014: Streaming officially incorporated into Official Singles Chart

The big one. Following the expansion of streaming in the UK, and the music industry's embrace of it as a whole, from 29 June 2014, streaming figures were officially incorporated into the count for the Official Singles Chart.

At this point in 2014, weekly streaming volumes in the UK had grown from 100 million in 2012 to 260 million per week.

July 2014: Ariana Grande's Problem is first UK Number 1 of streaming age

What's that sound you hear? Just the sound of a brand new pop superstar arriving to ring in a new era of British music consumption! It's fitting, with hindsight, that Ariana Grande - who would go on to become one of the tentpole artists for the streaming era (now with seven Number 1s and a few chart records under her belt to date) - was there at the very beginning.

On 6 July 2014, the infectiously saxxy Problem featuring Iggy Azalea landed the historic first UK Number 1 to include streaming data. Its 112,900 chart units straddled all three formats, with 217(!) physical copies, 105,600 downloads and 712,500 streams. In its second week of release it hit the (then-impressive) 1 million streams in seven days threshold, and repeated the feat for the next week three weeks on the bounce.

September 2014: Meghan Trainor's All About That Bass becomes first song to chart on streams alone

Meghan Trainor's debut single All About That Bass was a juggernaut from the off. Case in point; it charted in the UK before its official release to digital platforms like iTunes (back then, a single would only be officially 'launched' when it was available to buy on iTunes), and thanks to its streams alone, it was the first song to ever achieve this feat. 

Its entrance into the Top 100 came after 434,900 streams. Three weeks later it racked up 1.17m streams in seven days, and on 28 September 2014 entered the Top 40 of the Official Singles Chart at Number 33 entirely on streams. Its ‘official’ release in download stores a week later sent All About That Bass flying to Number 1, staying there for four weeks.

October 2014: Tidal launches in the UK, focusing on high-fidelity audio quality

A streaming service uniquely focused on high-fidelity audio quality arrives with Andy Chen, Tidal CEO, boasting that "music lovers can now appreciate music the way it is meant to sound."

December 2014: Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk breaks new streaming threshold

Uptown Funk became the first track to generate 2 million UK audio streams in a week. At this point, audio streams were rocketing, by the end of 2014 the market had doubled to 14.8 billion streams per year.

March 2015: Streams are incorporated into the Official Albums Chart

On 1 March 2015, Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour scooped the first UK Number 1 album based on both sales and streams. The change came after daily UK streams doubled from 25m in January 2014 to 50m in January 2015.

June 2015: Apple Music launches globally

After successfully dominating (and changing) the digital music marketplace with the introduction of iTunes, Apple's entry in the streaming arena was an anticipated challenge to Spotify, the market leader.  

July 2015: Global release dates and chart days change worldwide to combat piracy

The Official Chart moves from Sundays to Fridays as part of the Global Release Day initiative, to align release dates around the world and reduce piracy in the digital age.

December 2015: The Beatles catalogue lands on streaming services

The Beatles like keeping you waiting. The Fab Four had held off making their back catalogue available on iTunes until 2010, so it was with little surprise and a lot of fanfare that John, Paul, George and Ringo entered the streaming era in December 2015.

A testament to The Beatles's enduring popularity no matter the time period, streaming was a huge asset in helping Now And Then become the band's 18th UK Number 1 single last year.

April-July 2016: Drake's One Dance becomes longest-running Number 1 single of the digital age

Alongside Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, Canadian rap superstar Drake is one of the three foundational artists of the streaming era.

His biggest hit during this time, One Dance with Wizkid and Kyla, racked up 15 consecutive weeks at Number 1, matching Wet Wet Wet's chart-topping run with 1994 mega-hit Love Is All Around, and beaten only by historic classics from Frankie Lane (I Believe, 18 non-consecutive weeks), and Bryan Adams (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, 16 consecutive weeks).

March 10 2017: Ed Sheeran 'breaks' the Official Singles Chart

One of the landmark moments in Official Chart history, by 2017 singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran had used his early-career popularity on sites such as YouTube and GRM Daily to become one of the world's most popular artists, thanks in part to his dominance on streaming platforms. 

In release week for Ed's third studio Divide (led by the mega-hit Shape Of You which was originally written with Rihanna in mind and offered to Little Mix), the album completely dominated the Official Singles Chart - with all 16 of its track present in the Top 20.

With the release of high-streaming albums beginning to affect the Singles Chart, a change in chart rules was on the horizon.

July 2017: The three-track cap rule is introduced on the Official Singles Chart

In June 2017 the Official Charts Company announced that from July, artists would now be limited to three tracks that could simultaneously chart in the Top 100 of the Official Singles Chart, a rule that is still enforced today. It also means that Ed Sheeran will hold the record forevermore of the most simultaneous songs in the UK Top 40. Nice one, Ed.

July 2018: Dua Lipa helps usher in the era of video streams on the Official Chart

British-Albanian pop star Dua Lipa's energetic New Rules became her first UK Number 1; a viral sensation that helped transition her into superstardom, helped in large part by the popularity of its music video - the most streamed video by a British female of 2017.

As such, it was a fitting time for us to enlist the new queen of British pop to announce some big New (Official Chart) Rules. Dua helped spread the news to the world that, in the summer of 2018, video streams and downloads (and official audio clips on video platforms) would be included towards a song's UK chart position for the first time.

The chart evolution came as services such as Apple Music and Spotify added video to their platform and as YouTube launched their first subscription service in the UK, YouTube Music. The weighting of ad-funded (free) streams was also downgraded compared to premium streams.

2019: UK record labels report highest revenues in 14 years driven by streaming revenue growth

In 2019, analysis by the BPI reported that streaming had helped return UK record labels to their highest revenues in 14 years (£1.1bn), up 21.8% year on year.

March 2020: Some curious streaming habits emerge as Britain enters lockdown

As Britain entered Covid-19 lockdown, Official Charts revealed the British public's 'Lockdown Listening' habits and a surge in uptake of uplifting classics, “apocalyptic” isolation songs and kids’ favourites, as the UK got to grips with their new normal indoors. From The Police's Don't Stand So Close To Me, to REM's It's The End Of The World As We Know It, the streaming data painted a picture of a worried-but-hopeful nation.

22 October 2021: Adele breaks streaming records with Easy On Me

Adele's big return to the pop arena with 30 was long-awaited, and its lead single Easy On Me was typically against the grain; an understated piano ballad full of unabashed with emotion. The reception to it was rapturous; in its first week, Easy On Me logged 24 million streams in the UK, the most for any track in history and still yet to be beaten.

Of course it debuted straight in at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart, Adele's third UK chart-topper, staying at the summit for 8 non-consecutive weeks and becoming the 12th biggest song of 2021 (a massive flex, considering it debuted in October).

End of 2021: More tracks than ever reach 1 million streams

The scale of streaming diffuses in 2021 with a record 20,000 tracks streamed 1 million+ times in the UK that year, according to BPI analysis of Official Charts data.

June 17 2022: Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill has a viral resurgence

Sometimes, a song feels like Number 1 single, even if it never reached the summit in its lifetime. Such was the case with Kate Bush's influential synth-pop anthem Running Up That Hill, taken from her 1985 magnum opus The Hounds of Love. But thanks to the super popular fourth series of Netflix drama Stranger Things, its inclusion in a pivotal point in the narrative re-introduced the tune to an entirely new generation. It delivered Kate Bush (one of the most important pop artists to ever emerge from Britain) a surprise second career win on streaming. 

The influx of attention eventually resulted in Running Up That Hill finally climbing to Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart in June of that year - breaking three Official Chart records in the process and being named the UK's Official Song of the Summer for 2022.

November 2022: Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved named most-streamed song of all time

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the launch of the Official Singles Chart, Official Charts announced that Lewis Capaldi's breakthrough mega-hit Someone You Loved had officially overtaken Ed Sheeran's Shape of You to become the UK's most-streamed song of all time, a title it still retains today.

Jan 2023: Video streams begin counting in the Official Albums Chart

Following video's inclusion into the Singles Chart and the development of the video streaming market, from 1 January 2023 streams on the likes of YouTube began counting in the Albums Chart.

June 2023: Central Cee & Dave make UK chart history

A link-up between two of the most popular and acclaimed British MCs of their time, Central Cee & Dave's braggadocious summer hit Sprinter was an instant success. In its first full week on sale, on 9 June 2023 Sprinter earned the most streams for a rap track in a single week in UK chart history (13.4 million streams), overtaking the previous record-holder, Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, (12.84 million, 24 May 2019) and Stormzy’s Vossi Bop (12.76 million, 3 May 2019.)

Overall, it was the biggest first week of streams since Adele’s record-breaking Easy On Me debuted.

January 2024: The Saltburn Effect!

Sophie Ellis-Bextor's 2001 hit Murder On The Dancefloor makes a spectacular and much talked about return to the chart. Enjoying several new personal best streaming weeks, the disco track is propelled back to Number 2 thanks to featuring in Amazon Prime's hit film Saltburn.

May 2024: The Killers' Mr Brightside becomes biggest song of all time to not reach Number 1 

Destiny was (literally) calling. Just as summer crept around the corner, Official Charts announced that The Killers' timeless 2004 debut single Mr Brightside (the biggest streaming hit released in the pre-streaming era) is now officially the biggest song of all time to not reach Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart. Bizarrely, it only peaked at Number 10, yet has now overtaken Oasis' equally iconic Wonderwall on combined sales and streams.

With a total of 418 weeks logged inside the Official Singles Chart Top 100, Mr Brightside also holds the distinction of being the longest-charting single in UK chart history.