Billboard and artificial chart data

[bionic 50,107]

Days after Dua Lipa was blocked from #1 after Billboard reduced her sales because they were artificially created (i.e. by manipulating the sales algorithm), BTS have released their new single "Butter" and their stans are already working on a high profile Twitter campaign to create artificial streams, showing that this is not a problem unique to Dua Lipa. And of course we monsters know all about shady tactics being used to inflate chart figures   

Do we expect Billboard will continue to remove 'fake' chart data when counting the charts going ahead? Have they made a proper statement about this?

[Thomas P 18,479]

I think they will and I think they should. It’s not an accurate representation of the country’s chart if people from other countries are purchasing and streaming through a VPN. I think it’s a lot more transparent and accurate if they keep it up.

If they don’t then that reveals a lot more about them as a company and the lack of worth the chart has as a whole. 

[Illuminati 15,922]

1 hour ago, Thomas P said:

I think they will and I think they should. It’s not an accurate representation of the country’s chart if people from other countries are purchasing and streaming through a VPN. I think it’s a lot more transparent and accurate if they keep it up.

If they don’t then that reveals a lot more about them as a company and the lack of worth the chart has as a whole. 

They've increased the weight of radio on the chart this week just so Leave The Door Open could have a couple of points more than Levitating. If you think radio isn't being manipulated by labels, the radio hosts and industry connections I have big news for you. It's actually way worse than a couple of stans buying 4 songs on a VPN (which at least shows real demand from real people).

Billboard isn't ever going to show an accurate representation of what's currently popular if they keep moving the goal posts that they themselves established every time a song they don't like happens to be popular.

 

Any future changes to the chart formula should be more transparent and announced in advance otherwise this malicious manipulation will never end.

[GreenDiamond 6,286]

2 hours ago, Thomas P said:

I think they will and I think they should. It’s not an accurate representation of the country’s chart if people from other countries are purchasing and streaming through a VPN. I think it’s a lot more transparent and accurate if they keep it up.

If they don’t then that reveals a lot more about them as a company and the lack of worth the chart has as a whole. 

yeah it should be about GP interest and not battle of fanbases and bulk buying

[GreenDiamond 6,286]

also it funny they put katy there because she achieved many of those #1 with weird and already cheap tactis such is kanye remix and other weird bundles and discounts, ppl were dragging it for that back then on ATRL

now she really did not deserve to break that record and she kinda deserved that block

[whoresup 2,726]

I actually think as long as they are domestic sales I don’t have a problem with bulk buying because in this day and age it should mean more that people are actually paying money for a song. It also shows passion for an artist and I think that is important. 

[JanStan 574]

My question is why radio airplay is still carrying so much weight. Audience ‘impressions’ doesn’t mean people actually like a song or are even actively listening to it. Forget about the payola aspect. It’s an insanely outdated metric (just like the charts themselves). 

[bionic 50,107]

21 minutes ago, JanStan said:

My question is why radio airplay is still carrying so much weight. Audience ‘impressions’ doesn’t mean people actually like a song or are even actively listening to it. Forget about the payola aspect. It’s an insanely outdated metric (just like the charts themselves). 

Yeah its a joke that payola aside, radio stations/hosts decide what songs get constant replay and shut others out.

[Paper Gangsta 6,693]

2 hours ago, Illuminati said:

They've increased the weight of radio on the chart this week just so Leave The Door Open could have a couple of points more than Levitating. If you think radio isn't being manipulated by labels, the radio hosts and industry connections I have big news for you. It's actually way worse than a couple of stans buying 4 songs on a VPN (which at least shows real demand from real people).

Billboard isn't ever going to show an accurate representation of what's currently popular if they keep moving the goal posts that they themselves established every time a song they don't like happens to be popular.

 

Any future changes to the chart formula should be more transparent and announced in advance otherwise this malicious manipulation will never end.

There wasn't any chart formula change. Billboard didn't increase radio weight. Nielsen just adjusted audience per station (like they have been doin since pandemic). When country went into lockdown ppl were listening to radio less so they had to adjust total audience per radio station from week to week, now that its getting better they are increasing it back (and they did it several times before this week). Billboard wasn't involved in that, only thing they did was remove fraud sales (as they should). They did that before for BTS, Nicki Minaj and so on...

[whoresup 2,726]

2 hours ago, JanStan said:

My question is why radio airplay is still carrying so much weight. Audience ‘impressions’ doesn’t mean people actually like a song or are even actively listening to it. Forget about the payola aspect. It’s an insanely outdated metric (just like the charts themselves). 

Exactly! Radio is the only thing that the public and fans can’t control and yet it has such weight on the charts. Just because a song is being hammered on radio doesn’t mean people actually like it or would normally choose it. 
 

People always bring up Dua’s team and payola but she’s still literally got about half the impressions Bruno gets.