In the music industry, there is a discussion about purchased listening to music platforms such as Spotify. For the DigiListen top-charting program in P3, which among other things plays the songs that are most voiced in Sweden, the development of manipulated listening numbers is a major problem. A problem that may cause the program to change.
- It is not a question that we will delete the Digilist, but on the other hand we may redo the basis for what the list is based on for numbers, says Anna Karin Larsson, music director at Swedish Radio, to Kulturnytt.
Online services that offer fake listening, mean that the statistics of popular songs can be inaccurate and can make artists appear more successful than they actually are, something that Dagens Nyheter recently reviewed.
Recently, a number of artists have caught the eye and have been accused of manipulating their numbers. In early January, rapper French Montana was accused of buying listeners on Spotify. And earlier this week, pop star Justin Bieber, in a criticized Instagram post, urged his Beliebers to play one of his new songs on repeat during the night as they slept to improve on the stats.