What you need to know
- Billboard is changing how it determines the popularity of music on its charts.
- It announces this week that it will start including online music videos in its Billboard 200 rankings.
- However, the company noted that only 'official' views from established platforms would be tallied.
The music landscape has changed significantly in the last decade, thanks to the disruption caused by tech and streaming companies in how we consume entertainment. As a result, Billboard says it's changing with the times and will start incorporating views of online music videos in its popularity rankings for albums. Notably, the Billboard 200 charts, which show the 200 most popular albums each week, will now include views from YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
"As the steward of the definitive charts that uphold the industry's measurement of music consumption, our goal is to continually respond and accurately reflect the changing landscape of the music," said Billboard's Deanna Brown.
The company's metrics have included video views for song-specific charts since 2013, but for some reason, were left wanting when it came to whole albums. With this change, not only will the Billboard 200 charts incorporate video streaming, but the genre-specific album charts, too, will pay heed to all your Frozen II soundtrack marathons on YouTube.
YouTube's global head of music, Lyor Cohen, applauded the move as a "very important moment in making the chart a more accurate representation of what people are listening to." He also added that with the incorporation of video data into album charts, genres like Latin, hip-hop, and electronic, which have regularly been staples of YouTube viewers' daily music fix, would have far better representation as a result.
The changes to Billboard's rankings will go into effect early next year, starting from January 18.
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