Billboard Set To Change Its Albums Chart To Count Youtube Streams

Billboard has introduced that YouTube streams can be factored into the Billboard 200 albums chart beginning early subsequent yr. Video streams from different platforms may even depend, together with Apple, Spotify, Tidal, and Vevo, and Billboard says the change may even impression style album consumption charts, like nation, Latin, and others. Billboard’s charts have traditionally been seen as a barometer of success inside the music business.

Video streams have counted towards lots of Billboard’s song-specific charts since 2013, however have by no means been integrated into the albums chart. Billboard has been slowly updating its albums chart for years to shift it from being purely sales-based to a “multi-metric consumption” mannequin. It added audio streaming to its album-ranking metrics 5 years in the past, together with Spotify, Google Play, and even Xbox Music. Billboard has thought of whether or not video streams ought to depend towards this chart for a while, however has all the time caught with audio.

Whereas track charts take into account official movies and user-generated movies (like choreography movies, lyric movies, and even Memoji karaoke movies), the Billboard 200 chart will solely depend “official licensed video content material uploaded by or on behalf of rights holders.” And as for any potential manipulation of streaming numbers, Billboard launched a press release in 2017 saying it really works carefully with Nielsen Music to “guarantee there are safeguards in place to protect in opposition to automated streams and/or extreme streaming from singular IP addresses.”

The adjustments kick into impact subsequent month, starting with charts dated January 18th, 2020.