The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the
United States.
The results are published in Billboard magazine.
History, methods and description On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published
its first music hit parade.
The first Music Popularity Chart was calculated in July 1940.
A variety of song charts followed, which were eventually consolidated into the Hot 100 by
mid-1958.
The Hot 100 currently combines single sales, radio airplay, digital downloads, and streaming
activity.
All of Billboard's charts use this basic formula.
What separates the charts is which stations and stores are used; each musical genre has
a core audience or retail group.
Each genre's department at Billboard is headed up by a chart manager, who makes these determinations.
For many years, a song had to be commercially available as a single to be considered for
any of Billboard's charts.
At the time, instead of using SoundScan or BDS, Billboard obtained its data from manual
reports filled out by radio stations and stores.
According to the 50th Anniversary issue of Billboard, prior to the official implementation
of Nielsen SoundScan tracking in November 1991, many radio stations and retail stores
removed songs from their manual reports after the associated record labels stopped promoting
a particular single.
Thus songs fell quickly after peaking and had shorter chart lives.
In 1990, the country singles chart was the first chart to use SoundScan and BDS.
They were followed by the Hot 100 and the R&B chart in 1991.
Today, all of Billboard's charts use this technology.
Originally, Billboard had separate charts for different measures of popularity, including
disk jockey playings, juke box song selection, and best selling records in retail stores.
A composite standing chart that combined these gradually grew to become a top 100, the predecessor
to the current Hot 100 chart.
The juke box chart ceased publication after the June 17, 1957 issue, the disk jockey chart,
after the July 28, 1958 issue, and the best seller chart, after the October 13, 1958 issue.
The July 28, 1958 issue was also the last issue that called the composite chart the
Top 100; the following week began the Hot 100.
Billboard publishes many different charts, with the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 being the
most famous.
Billboard also has charts for the following music styles: rock, country, dance, bluegrass,
jazz, classical, R&B, rap, electronic, pop, Latin, Christian music, comedy albums, catalog
albums, and even ringtones for mobile phones.
In 2009 Billboard partnered with MetroLyrics to offer top 10 lyrics for each of the charts.
At the end of each year, Billboard tallies the results of all of its charts, and the
results are published in a year-end issue and heard on year-end editions of its American
Top 40 and American Country Countdown radio broadcasts.
Between 1991 and 2006, the top singleartist(s) in each of those charts was/were awarded in
the form of the annual Billboard Music Awards, which were held in December until the awards
went dormant in 2007.
The awards returned in May 2011.
Before September 1995, singles were allowed to chart in the week they first went on sale
based on airplay points alone.
The policy was changed in September 1995 to only allow a single to debut after a full
week of sales on combined sales and airplay points.
This allowed several tracks to debut at number one.
In December 1998, the policy was further modified to allow tracks to chart on the basis of airplay
alone without a commercial release.
This change was made to reflect the changing realities of the music business.
Previous to this, several substantial radio and MTV hits had not appeared on the Billboard
chart at all, because many major labels chose not to release them as standalone singles,
hoping their unavailability would spur greater album sales.
Not offering a popular song to the public as a single was unheard of before the 1970s.
The genres that suffered most at the time were those that increasingly impacted pop
culture, including new genres such as trip hop and grunge.
Among the many pre-1999 songs that had ended up in this Hot 100 limbo were The Cardigans'
"Lovefool", Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn", Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris", OMC's "How Bizarre", Sugar
Ray's "Fly" and No Doubt's "Don't Speak".
Incorporating digital platforms Starting in 2005, Billboard changed its methodology
to include paid digital downloads from digital music retailers such as Rhapsody, AmazonMP3,
iTunes.
This change also allowed songs to chart with or without the help of radio airplay.
This meant that a song did not need radio airplay to be eligible to chart on the Billboard
Hot 100.
With this policy change, a song could chart based on digital downloads alone.
On July 31, 2007 "Billboard" changed its methodology for the Hot 100 chart to include digital streams.
The digital information at the time was obtained from Yahoo and AOL's streaming platforms.
This change was made exclusively to the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
The effect of this chart change was minuscule at the time because it was estimated to account
for 5% of the chart's total points.
In October 2012, Billboard dramatically changed the methodology for their country, rock, Latin,
and rap charts, when they incorporated sales of digital downloads and streaming plays into
what had been airplay-only charts.
Another change was that rather than measuring airplay only from radio stations of the particular
genre, the new methodology measures airplay from all radio formats.
This methodology was extended to their Christian and gospel charts in late 2013.
On February 20, 2013, Billboard announced another change in the methodology for their
charts that incorporated YouTube video streaming data into the determination of ranking positions
on its streaming charts.
The incorporation of YouTube streaming data enhanced a formula that includes on-demand
audio streaming and online radio streaming.
The YouTube video streams that used in this methodology are official video streams, Vevo
on YouTube streams, and user-generated clips that utilize authorized audio.
Billboard argued that this change was made to further reflect the divergent platforms
of music consumption in today's world.
Singles and tracks All-genre
R&B/Hip-Hop Adult/Pop
Country Rock
Dance Latin
Christian Jazz
Ringtones Canadian charts
International charts Discontinued charts
Albums Other charts
In December 2010, Billboard announced a new chart titled Social 50, which ranks the most
active artists on the world's leading social networking sites.
The Social 50 chart tallies artists' popularity using their weekly additions of friendsfollowers,
along with weekly artist page views and weekly song plays on Myspace, YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter and iLike.
In January 2011, Billboard introduced another chart called Uncharted, which lists new and
developing artists, who are yet to appear on any major Billboard chart, "...regardless
of their country of origin."
The ranking is based on the views and fans on social networking websites like Myspace
and Facebook.
To appear on Uncharted, the artists must be registered Myspace Music artists, and should
not have appeared on any major Billboard charts before.
In May 2014, after the Korea K-Pop Hot 100 chart was discontinued in the U.S., the Billboard
K-Town column continued to provide chart information for K-pop artists on all Billboard charts.
Further reading Durkee, Rob.
"American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century."
Schriner Books, New York City, 1999.
Battistini, Pete.
"American Top 40 with Casey Kasem The 1970s."
Authorhouse.com, January 31, 2005.
ISBN 1-4184-1070-5 References
General Parker, Martin.
"Making Sense with the Hit Parade".
Popular Music 10: 205–17.
doi:10.1017/s0261143000004517.
Hakanen, Ernest.
"Counting Down to the Number One:Evolution of the Meaning of Popular Music Charts".
Popular Music 17: 98–111.
doi:10.1017/s0261143000000507.
"About Us".
Nielsen Business Media Inc. 2009.
"Billboard.com FAQ".
Nielsen Business Media Inc. 2009.
"Billboard Latest Charts Lyrics".
MetroLyrics.
Retrieved September 5, 2010.
Specific
External links Billboard charts available to view for free
Full list of charts that Billboard publishes for subscribers