Billboard changing its main album chart, will count streaming services

[craig 680]

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.

 

So for a 12 track album, you need to stream it through 125 times to equal 1 album sale.

[Slojo 51]

So albums by artists with large fan bases will hang around clogging up the charts for ages whilst smaller artists / albums won't get a look in.  So C2C for instance wouldn't have made number 1 along with a lot of others

 

As some have said it just makes the charts meaningless and boreing

[Stra 6]

This means less #1 albums throughout the year, as it should be. It feels like there is a new album at #1 every week. Makes it less amazing. 

[Cody Draco 2,531]

So albums by artists with large fan bases will hang around clogging up the charts for ages whilst smaller artists / albums won't get a look in.  So C2C for instance wouldn't have made number 1 along with a lot of others

 

As some have said it just makes the charts meaningless and boreing

 

Yeah and it makes it harder for non-mainstream artists to be noticed. That's why I was saying in a previous post, charts = more exposure. If an indie/non-mainstream artist doesn't sell singles well but manage to get an album in the top 10 of the albums charts it gives them exposure to people who check the chart.

[Jester 6,273]

Streaming music services like Spotify have brought big changes to the music industry. But one important part of the business has not kept up: Billboard’s album chart.

 

Now Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan, the agency that supplies its data, will start adding streams and downloads of tracks to the formula behind the Billboard 200, which, since 1956 has functioned as the music world’s weekly scorecard. It is the biggest change since 1991, when the magazine began using hard sales data from SoundScan, a revolutionary change in a music industry that had long based its charts on highly fudgeable surveys of record stores.

 

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.

 

“We were always limited to the initial impulse, when somebody purchased an album,†Mr. Pietroluongo said in an interview. “Now we have the ability to look at that engagement and gauge the popularity of an album over time.â€

 

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.

 

Cont.

[bionic 40,702]

I thought they already did. I presumed it was implemented alongside the YouTube streams.

[Jester 6,273]

AP  http://gagadaily.com/index.php/topic/129971-bb-200-gets-a-messy-new-rule/?hl=billboard

Oh

 

Haven't even checked the Charts Discussion since it has nothing to do with Gaga

I thought they already did. I presumed it was implemented alongside the YouTube streams.

They changed the Hot 100 single charts, now they're basically doing the same thing with the album charts

[bionic 40,702]

Oh

 

Haven't even checked the Charts Discussion since it has nothing to do with Gaga

They changed the Hot 100 single charts, now they're basically doing the same thing with the album charts

 

oop. i clearly didn't rea dproperly :toofloppy:

[craig 680]

This means less #1 albums throughout the year, as it should be. It feels like there is a new album at #1 every week. Makes it less amazing. 

Not too many less, since most albums are so frontloaded.

 

What would have blocked C2C? Barbara and Chesney weren't big streaming or singes artists either, and the albums with popular singles were way behind.

[Vernier 3,786]

This has has been in the works for a while. I actually thought it had been implemented already for a while now :sweat:

[Mills 446]

With TEAs (track equivalent albums) and SEAs (stream equivalent albums) being counted soon, that'll be beyond horrible (and unfair) to those who are strictly album sellers, without any string of hit singles, both in retail and online. The likes of Katy Perry and Rihanna will surely greatly benefit from this, and I can imagine them celebrating by now. 

[Spock 20,290]

But that's because the album just came out. With this rule won't the longevity of an album be shown? So her album will miss out on the streams. Although her album is big enough that I don't think this will affect her much. She's a sale monster. 

I know that promo has something to do with it but I meant that it shows that if people are interested, if free streaming isn't necessarily available and they are interested, they buy it. So I suspect that yeah, maybe longevity won't be the same, but the result will still be achieved.

 

I do think that this new rule is a wonderful coincidence, since other major labels are considering pulling from free streaming services too

[PicklePower 1,649]

what's a "track equivalent album"? 

 

So if you'd stream one song 1,500 times, that would be considered an album sale? Wouldn't it be better to have 75% of the album streamed?

[PicklePower 1,649]

With TEAs (track equivalent albums) and SEAs (stream equivalent albums) being counted soon, that'll be beyond horrible (and unfair) to those who are strictly album sellers, without any string of hit singles, both in retail and online. The likes of Katy Perry and Rihanna will surely greatly benefit from this, and I can imagine them celebrating by now. 

 

What are track equivalent albums and stream equivalent albums?

[Mills 446]

What are track equivalent albums and stream equivalent albums?

1 track equivalent album unit (TEA) = 10 tracks sold = 1 "album" sold

1 stream equivalent album unit (SEA) = 1,500 streams = 1 "album" sold, but this depends on the "average blended per-stream rate for audio and music videos", according to Billboard. That varies depending on the pay rate. 

 

Here's more about the two - http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/record-labels/6150181/soundscan-mid-year-albums-down-stream-equivalents-nearly