The Official Subscription Plays Chart is a music chart based on the number of plays of songs on subscription-based services in the United Kingdom. It is compiled weekly by The Official Charts Company (OCC), and is believed by Martin Talbot, managing director of the OCC, to be the first of its kind in the entire world. Each week's number one is 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

HMV

His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...

, MusicStation

MusicStation

MusicStation is a music service platform developed by Omnifone. The cloud based platform works across a number of different digital device platforms and is tailored specifically for various partners including RIM, Sony, Sony Ericsson, HP, BSkyB, Vodafone, Telenor, Hutchison Telecom and...

, Napster

Napster

Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

 and the Nokia Music Store

Nokia Music Store

Nokia Music Store is part of the Ovi services portal from Nokia. It was launched on August 29, 2007. The idea behind the store is to provide to all Nokia MP3 capable mobile users a music store on the phone as on the PC....

, 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" by Katy Perry

Katy Perry

Katy Perry is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Born in Santa Barbara, California, and raised by Christian pastor parents, Perry grew up listening to only gospel music and sang in her local church as a child. After earning a GED during her first year of high school, she began to pursue a...

. As well as songs that were charting high in the companion UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

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

Elbow (band)

Elbow are an English rock band. They have played together since 1990 and recorded five studio albums, the most recent of which is Build a Rocket Boys!, released in March 2011...

, The Verve

The Verve

The Verve were an English rock band formed in 1989 in Wigan by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones, and drummer Peter Salisbury. Guitarist and keyboardist Simon Tong later became a member. Beginning with a psychedelic sound indebted to shoegazing and space...

 and Glasvegas

Glasvegas

Glasvegas are a Scottish indie rock band from Glasgow. The band consists of James Allan , Rab Allan , Paul Donoghue and Jonna Löfgren . The band received critical acclaim for their debut album Glasvegas which was released in September 2008, reaching No...

. According to the British Phonographic Industry

British Phonographic Industry

The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...

, "the Official Subscription Plays Chart underlines the greater tendency to experiment among users of subscription services".

See also

• List of Official Subscription Plays Chart number ones
• UK Official Download Chart
  UK Official Download Chart
  The UK Official Download Chart is compiled by The Official UK Charts Company on behalf of the music industry. The chart week runs from Sunday to Saturday, with the chart being published on a Wednesday afternoon, so as to not to clash with the release of the main UK Singles Chart...
  
  
• UK Singles Chart
  UK Singles Chart
  The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
  
  

External links

• Digital Plays Chart at The Official Charts Company