User:Lil-unique1/Project: US Billboard Charts

Billboard Charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine. The two primary charts - the Hot 100 (top 100 singles) and the Billboard 200 (top 200 albums) - factor in airplay, as well as music sales in all relevant formats.

On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade. The first Music Popularity Chart was calculated in July 1940. A variety of song charts followed, which were eventually consolidated into the Hot 100 by mid-1958. The Hot 100 currently combines single sales, radio airplay and digital downloads.

Methodology
Currently, Billboard utilizes a system called Nielsen SoundScan to track sales of singles, albums, videos and DVDs. Essentially, it's a system that registers sales when products are purchased from SoundScan-enabled stores. Billboard also uses a system called Broadcast Data Systems, or BDS, which they own as a subsidiary, to track radio airplay. Each song has an "acoustic fingerprint" which, when played on a radio station that is contracted to use BDS, is detected. These detections are added up every week among all radio stations to determine airplay points. Arbitron statistics are also factored in to give "weight" to airplay based on audience size and time-of-day.

All of Billboard's charts use this basic formula. What separates the charts is which stations and stores are used - each musical genre having a core audience or retail group. Each genre's department at Billboard is headed up by a chart manager, who makes these determinations.

For many years, a song had to be commercially available as a single to be considered for any of Billboard's charts. At the time, instead of using SoundScan or BDS, Billboard obtained its data from manual reports filled out by radio stations and stores. According to the 50th Anniversary issue of Billboard, prior to the official implementation of Nielsen SoundScan tracking in November 1991, many radio stations and retail stores removed songs from their manual reports after the associated record labels stopped promoting a particular single. Thus songs fell quickly after peaking and had shorter chart lives. In 1990, the country singles chart was the first chart to use SoundScan and BDS. They were followed by the Hot 100 and the R&B chart in 1991. Today, all of Billboard's charts use this technology. Before September 1995, singles were allowed to chart in the week they first went on sale based on airplay points alone. The policy was changed in September 1995 to only allow a single to debut after a full week of sales on combined sales and airplay points. This allowed several tracks to debut at number one.

In December 1998, the policy was further modified to allow tracks to chart on the basis of airplay alone without a commercial release. This change was made to reflect the changing realities of the music business. Previous to this, several substantial radio and MTV hits had not appeared on the Billboard chart at all, because many major labels chose not to release them as standalone singles, hoping their unavailability would spur greater album sales. Not offering a popular song to the public as a single was unheard of before the 1970s. The genres that suffered most at the time were those that increasingly impacted pop culture, including new genres such as trip hop and grunge. Among the many pre-1999 songs that had ended up in this Hot 100 limbo were The Cardigans' "Lovefool", Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn", Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris", OMC's "How Bizarre", Sugar Ray's "Fly" and No Doubt's "Don't Speak".

Starting in 2005, Billboard changed its methodology to allow paid digital downloads from digital music stores such as iTunes to chart with or without the help of radio airplay.

Yearly charts
At the end of each year, Billboard tallies the results of all of its charts, and the results are published in a year-end issue and heard on year-end editions of its American Top 40 and American Country Countdown radio broadcasts, in addition to being announced in the press. Between 1991 and 2006, the top single/album/artist(s) in each of those charts was/were awarded in the form of the annual Billboard Music Awards, which were annually held in December until the awards went dormant in 2007 (plans for a new version of the awards in 2008 fell through, and no awards have been held since 2007). The year-end charts cover a period from the first week of December of the previous year to the last week of November of the respective year.

Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is perhaps the best known chart because it is the United State's official top 100 singles. According to Billboard's own website it is the country's most popular songs measured by radio impressions (Nielson BDS), single sales from (Nielson SoundScan) and online streaming activities.
 * Component charts:
 * 'Hot 100 Airplay (Radio Songs)' which records the total number of radio impressions across all airplay formats measured by Nielson BDS.
 * 'Hot 100 Physical (Single Sales)' which records the total number of physical singles sold through sales data from Nielson SoundScan.
 * 'Hot 100 Digital (Digital Songs)' which measures the week's most popular downloaded songs from all formats using data comipled by Nielson SoundScan.

Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs
The Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs is one of several U.S. genre charts published by Billboard to measure the popularity of R&B and Hip-Hop songs over the week. It is compiled from radio audience impressions (Nielson BDS) and sales data (Nielson SoundScan). The main chart consists of 100 chart positions however if a song fails to chart in the top 100 it could chart on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart which records the next 25 most popular R&B/Hip-Hop Songs behind the official top 100. It is only published in the physical editions of the Billboard magazine and through subscription at Billboard.biz.
 * Component charts:
 * 'Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay' which measures the total number of radio impressions that songs garner on R&B and Hip-Hop radio stations over a week.
 * 'Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Single Sales' which measures the number of physical records sold for songs which fall into the R&B and/or Hip-Hop song genres.
 * 'R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs' takes into account the number of digital downloads for songs from this genre.
 * 'Adult R&B Songs' is the chart which measures the radio impressions of R&B songs which are specifically solicited to Adult R&B radio stations.

Hot Dance Club Songs
The Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart is the official U.S. chart for measuring the weekly popularity of dance and club songs in the country. Unlike other U.S. genre charts this one is measured solely on the number of spins that songs are given by a sample of national club DJs who have registerd with Billboard. This stipulation means that songs which are never released as a single can chart and receive club airplay. A recent example of this would be "Fresh Out the Oven" by Jennifer Lopez which is not available for purchase but was leaked by Epic Records and subsequently charted on the 'Hot Dance Club Songs' at number one.
 * Related charts
 * 'Hot Dance Airplay' is chart which measures the number of radio spins that songs recieve on the several electronic dance radio stations which exist in the country. The chart can only be accessed via subscription at Billboard.biz.


 * 'Dance/Electronic Digital Songs' measures the digital downloads of electronic and dance music songs but the chart can only be accessed via subscription at Billboard.biz.
 * Hot Dance/Electronic Single Sales' measures the physical record sales of electronic and dance music songs but the chart can only be accessed via subscription at Billboard.biz.

Adult Contemporary
Previouly known as (Hot Adult Contemporary Singles/Tracks/Songs) the Adult Contemporary measures the week's most popular soft rock songs by reports and data compiled from Nielson SoundScan and ranked by total radio airplay impressions.