Billboard's Genre Album Charts Will Now Incorporate Streams & Track Sales
1/26/2017 by Billboard Staff
Revamped charts, including Top Country Albums and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, now incorporate streaming & track sales into rankings to better reflect consumer behavior.
Billboard's genre album charts are evolving to a consumption methodology, following the successful conversion of the iconic all-genre Billboard 200 chart to a multi-metric ranking, including traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
The transformed genre charts will match the Billboard 200 formula, equating 10 digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale (TEA), as well as 1,500 on-demand song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale (SEA). Sales and streaming data is compiled by Nielsen Music.
“We’ve been thrilled with the reception to the Billboard 200 album consumption methodology and how it reflects album popularity in today’s world, where music is accessible on so many platforms,” says Silvio Pietroluongo, VP of charts and data development at Billboard. “The conversion of genre album charts to consumption reinforces how this approach has become the accepted measure of album success.”
“Nielsen Music is committed to setting the industry standard for music measurement and reporting,” says Erin Crawford, SVP entertainment and GM music at Nielsen. “Music Connect recently introduced genre album consumption charts and we’re excited to work with Billboard as they further adopt this methodology. As the leading music measurement service on the market, Music Connect will continue to present all of Billboard’s consumption, streaming, sales and airplay charts.”
The first newly formulated genre album consumption charts will premiere on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Jan. 31 (with charts dated Feb. 11), and will reflect album sales, track sales and audio on-demand streaming data, tracked by Nielsen Music, for the week ending Thursday, Jan. 26.
The charts making the move to a consumption methodology are:
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, plus:
-R&B Albums
-Rap Albums
Top Rock Albums, plus:
-Alternative Albums
-Hard Rock Albums
-Americana/Folk Albums
Top Latin Albums, plus:
-Latin Pop Albums
-Regional Mexican Albums
-Tropical Albums
-Latin Rhythm Albums
Top Christian Albums, plus:
-Christian/Gospel Albums
Billboard will also continue to publish pure album sales charts for the above genres, comprising Nielsen's sales data, exclusively.
The move to a consumption methodology will ensure that the top-ranked titles each week on the above charts will align as the top titles of those genres on the Billboard 200.
On-demand audio subscription services contributing to the Billboard 200, and the above charts under their new methodology, are Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Slacker, Napster, Google Play, Groove Music and Medianet.