Main | Thursday, March 15, 2012

Billboard Mag Rejiggers Hot 100

In recognition of the way many people listen to music these days, Billboard Magazine this week began compiling its famed Hot 100 singles chart with the inclusion of data about the tracks that are the most popular on streaming services such as Spotify. They've also added a new chart that exclusively ranks the most-streamed songs.
Billboard, Nielsen and NARM's digitalmusic.org announced today the launch of the first-ever subscription services "On-Demand Songs" chart, and that this data will also be included in the Billboard Hot 100. On-demand streaming data is now factored into the chart's ranking, enhancing a formula that includes digital download track sales and physical singles sales, as tracked by Nielsen SoundScan; as well as radio airplay and other streaming services, as tracked by Nielsen BDS.

Nielsen BDS, which began tracking streaming activity in 2005, measures every on-demand play request and plays from unlimited listener-controlled radio channels on MOG, Muve Music, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker and Spotify; data from Zune and Sony Music Unlimited is expected to be added in the coming weeks. The plays tracked for the On-Demand Songs chart include streams and tethered downloads by both paying and free/trial tier users. Through the first 70 days of 2012, Nielsen BDS has captured more than 4.5. billion audio streams.
The first version of the Hot 100 under the new system is here. Below is the first week of Billboard's On Demand Singles chart.

Labels: , ,

comments powered by Disqus

<<Home