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BuzzJack Music Forum _ International Charts _ Billboard Top 200 to include streaming
Posted by: Timmy SZN Nov 19 2014, 10:26 PM
The new chart, covering sales and listening from Monday to Nov. 30, will be revealed on Billboard’s website on Dec. 4 and published in print in its Dec. 13 issue. Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard’s director of charts, said that by looking at streams as well as sales, the new chart will more accurately reflect how people listen to music these days.
One expected result is that albums by big pop stars — which tend to open high on the chart and then plunge after just a few weeks — should linger longer in the upper rungs. Ariana Grande’s “My Everything,” for example, which opened at No. 1 in September, was No. 36 on last week’s chart, with 10,000 sales. Under the new formula, it would have been No. 9.
SoundScan and Billboard will count 1,500 song streams from services like Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio, Rhapsody and Google Play as equivalent to an album sale. For the first time, they will also count “track equivalent albums” — a common industry yardstick of 10 downloads of individual tracks — as part of the formula for album rankings on the Billboard 200.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/business/media/billboard-changing-the-charts-will-count-streaming-services-.html?src=twr&_r=1
Posted by: jsilv Nov 19 2014, 10:34 PM
omg if this happens to uk charts 
Posted by: { bré } Nov 19 2014, 10:36 PM
Well I suppose it was only a matter of time before Billboard did something this ridiculous.
It's one thing including streaming towards individual songs but this is now going to mean people contribute to an album without owning or even being interested in owning (or listening in full to) said album. Good one.
Posted by: britster Nov 19 2014, 10:38 PM
Billboard chart date December 13th, 2014, ie, 2 weeks from now.
Posted by: Doctor Blind Nov 19 2014, 10:39 PM
What? How? Huh?
I don't understand how this works at all. MESS.
Posted by: Nelly. S Nov 19 2014, 10:42 PM
That must be the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year 
Posted by: Doctor Blind Nov 19 2014, 10:53 PM
Billboard to include the BuzzJack Multi-chart to prop-up increasingly frail market from January 2017.
Posted by: April Nov 19 2014, 11:09 PM
Billboard is an absolute joke.
Posted by: Liаm Nov 19 2014, 11:30 PM
Wtf :/ I don't see how they can even track this...
Will it just be like including the top albums on Spotify? Because people will often just listen to a few songs they like but have no interest in the whole album :/ So lots of potential extra sales will be for nothing...
Posted by: Rabbit Froot Nov 19 2014, 11:51 PM
lol
Posted by: Umi Nov 20 2014, 12:05 AM
I get why they're doing it, because including things like album streaming do help to more accurately show the "impact" of an album on the general public and the Billboard charts have long seemed to best show how much impact a release is making on the public. I don't think this is a poor way to do so, because even if Ariana isn't selling too much, her album is impacting on the US public right now thanks to a popular single, so being the 36th most relevant album of the week isn't really right...
Still, I liked the albums chart as a sales chart and it was always a thing of sanity compared to the Hot 100. From now on it will be... variable, to say the least. And it's now harder for "album artists" to actually impact on the album chart in the way they used to. Not supportive of this, just understanding why a company with Billboard's views would do it.
Posted by: TeamRabbitHeart Nov 20 2014, 12:07 AM
I just want sales 
I don't want any of these streaming sales.
Posted by: britster Nov 20 2014, 04:24 AM
From http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6320099/billboard-200-makeover-streams-digital-tracks:
"The updated Billboard 200 will utilize accepted industry benchmarks for digital and streaming data, equating 10 digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale, and 1,500 song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale.http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6320099/billboard-200-makeover-streams-digital-tracks
While the Billboard 200 will be taking on a whole new look, Billboard will continue to publish a pure album sales chart, called Top Album Sales, that will maintain the traditional Billboard 200 methodology, comprising Nielsen's sales data exclusively. Existing genre album charts (Country, R&B/Hip-Hop, etc.) will also remain sale-based for the time being."
- Does this refer to tracks downloaded specifically from an album or tracks downloaded as singles?
- Is it 10 different tracks (which it can't be, as some albums have less than than that)?
Posted by: Dircadirca Nov 20 2014, 05:05 AM
I've always been interested by the prospect of a streaming albums chart, as piracy seems to skew album charts in ways that feel off. But this does seem like the wrong way to go about it. Because the Spotify Top Albums chart seems to have the same system, and so often you'll see albums that pretty much no one is listening to rocket to the top because they have 1 hit single attached to them. I'd say the solution is to only count people who listen to most/all of the album, but that in itself is a messy implementation, and not helped by the fact that most people don't seem to be interested in streaming full albums
Posted by: buzz_person Nov 20 2014, 06:18 AM
So, in short: Digital Sales: 10 track downloads from an album = 1 sale (??) / Audio stream = 1500 streams from an album = 1 sale
This is confusing as hell. For the 10 track rules in Digital Sales, obviously single releases should be counted towards singles and not part of the "album bundle". Same should apply for streaming. The question is for how long though? Will it be the standard 20-week run (for hit singles which would last longer than 20, the single drop out the week it charts below Top 40/50, I think) at singles chart then that single switches to track, being replaced with a new one?? Or simply, whenever the label decides to release a follow-up. Even at that, it still looks like a mess.
Also, like Brister said, what about albums less than 10 tracks?? What will happen to the Extended Play (EP) releases?? The streaming part speaks for itself, byt what about downloads?? Also, will sale points worth more or the same should someone buy 11+ tracks, let alone the whole album (standard and deluxe)??
MESS.
Posted by: britster Nov 20 2014, 06:24 AM
I read an article previously that mentioned that it will help artists like Disclosure whose album does well on streaming sites but doesn't sell much.
Posted by: ► ▲ N Nov 20 2014, 07:08 AM
really? I'm all for including streaming in the singles chart but an album chart should be solely based on sales of the album, not on a few tracks being popular and getting tons of streams. Hope the UK don't follow suit but its likely with the way album sales are going.
Posted by: Kath ♡ Nov 20 2014, 07:15 AM
Personally I'm not very happy about this~
For example this is obviously going to have a very negative effect on albums like Cheek to Cheek. Most of the elderly market don't even know what a stream is.
Posted by: popchartfreak Nov 20 2014, 08:08 AM
it's the mystifyingly powerful non-profit-making non-artist-paying streaming companies dictating what the record industry do and it's nonsense.
As the wonderful INDEPENDENT Taylor Swift showed, removing all of her catalogue from spotify increased actual real sales and she lost at most 50,000 dollars in income from streaming, which is peanuts. The major labels (those 2 or 3 that rule the music world) love a quick chunk of instant cash, they dont care if the artist get next to nothing and they always have their eye on short-term get-quick-rich schemes not artist development and with an eye on the future sales.
Theyve already decided streaming is the wave of the future and have put all their eggs in one basket and sod the consequences. Streaming sites don't make profits, the business model is still flawed, and this is all pie in the hopeful sky to get people used to (forced to) go that way.
Billboard is insane and it's bad fpr the music industry.
Posted by: Umi Nov 20 2014, 04:07 PM
Where's the evidence of that?
Posted by: britster Nov 20 2014, 05:00 PM
It means if you have an artist like Flo Rida who sells a lot of singles, but not albums.
If a track on his album sells 600k, that will contribute 60k sales to his album and put him in the Top 5 
Posted by: girl_from_oz Nov 20 2014, 06:15 PM
When how this will affect Taylor Swift
Posted by: britster Nov 20 2014, 07:31 PM
It will just increase her sales, as she has 2 songs in the Digital Songs Top 5.
Assuming we've made the right assumptions about the chart, she would have added another 42k to her album total.
Posted by: popchartfreak Nov 21 2014, 07:40 AM
Last week's music week quoted both her management and spotify over disputed claims - Swift's management say she lost a marginal amount of cash from Spotify, Spotify claim she lost a POTENTIAL 2 million dollars, not quite the same thing at all. Potential sales are not actual sales, and her actual sales were pretty impressive first week. As an artist she has the power to do what she likes, cos she owns her own label.
Posted by: fchd Nov 21 2014, 08:45 AM
Assuming we've made the right assumptions about the chart, she would have added another 42k to her album total.
Pedant's alert - it won't actually increase the sales, just increase the sales numbers.
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