The Australian Recording Industry Association has announced it will follow the lead of chart organisations elsewhere in the world, including are own lovable Official Charts Company, and incorporate download sales into its official singles chart.
As previously reported, ARIA only launched its bespoke digital sales chart earlier this year - the major download platforms having launched somewhat later in Australia than in the US and key European markets. The new announcement means that from 8 Oct those digital sales statistics will also be incorporated into the overall singles chart.
Confirming the decision, ARIA Chart And Marketing Committee Chairman John Parker told reporters that the inclusion of digital stats into the singles chart was "the logical next step", adding that, with 30% of singles sales in Australia now sold digitally, the new singles chart would more "accurately represent overall sales of singles, be they physical or digital, in the local market place."
ARIA is yet to confirm the specifics of how the new combined singles chart will operate. Incorporating digital sales into the physical singles chart does pose some issues, such as whether you include tracks that are only available digitally, and whether songs where two versions are in circulation should be dealt with separately or not - currently, different versions are listed separately on the Australian digital chart, but in the main singles chart they would be combined as if the two versions were, in fact, one track. The answers to such questions should become clear in the next week.