RIAA adds digital streams to G&P program

STREAMS LIKE OLD TIMES: The RIAA has announced that it is integrating streams into the Gold & Platinum Program. The move follows a year of research and consultation with NARM/digitalmusic.org and pros from across the biz. On-demand audio and video streams from legit sources like MOG, Muve, Rdio, Rhapsody, Xbox Music, MTV.com, VEVO, Yahoo! Music, YouTube and others will be tabulated into awards, and the org announced a fleet of new "combined" certs (comprising downloads and streams). Among the fresh honorees are Adele, Aerosmith, Whitney Houston, Pink, Frank Ocean, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Emeli Sande, Anna Kendrick, Kanye West and many more. How is this all totted up? Who's involved? What kind of canned quotes did publicists generate for the press release? Not today, friend; we'll have expanded coverage on this development soon. We can say that Sande, Cher Lloyd and Jason Derulo will collect inaugural "combined" Digital Single Awards at a schmancy Music Biz 2013 event tonight, which our own Mark Pearson will no doubt tell you all about. Speaking of our retail guru, his latest dispatch from the convention can be found here. Do not mix with alcohol. (5/9p)