It’s not often I get to write a piece about some institution of music making positive changes but this is one of those times.
For better or worse, Billboard is the king of charts. The company was created in 1894 (much older than I thought) as a trade publication for bill posters, basically meaning it covered entertainment events such as fairs, burlesque shows, and circuses, while also providing a mail service for traveling entertainers. They adapted when the rise of jukeboxes and radios happened, transitioning to a magazine that not only covered music and the music industry, but became synonymous with charts, which measures the popularity of a given song or album in a given time frame.
The first “Billboard Music Popularity Chart” was published on July 27th, 1940 and provided separate listings for retail sales, sheet music sales, jukebox selections, and radio play. Today, Billboard has over 200 charts with the two most important being “Billboard Hot 100” (the one hundred most popular songs in the US) and the “Billboard 200” (the two hundred most popular albums in the US).
I think the country charts are the most important, but alas, I have no control over the value given to these things by the general public…
The “Number One” Incentive
Obviously, it’s a big deal when someone gets on or to the top of any of these charts and an artist who does is often quick to shout it from the rooftops (or post on Instagram) about their achievement. An artist’s success on these charts doesn’t end there though. Historically, labels, promoters, managers, and various other aspects of the music and entertainment business have used these to create festival line-ups, determine who deserves a record deal, who gets on late night TV, etc. It’s also the easiest way to compare two artists and see which has a better connection with the public. Put simply, how an artist fairs on the Billboard charts matters, which incentivizes people to try and game the system to earn a little cred.
While chart manipulation has been going on for years (the whole “pay to play” on radio being a major issue), things changed as streamers such as Spotify and Apple Music exploded. Billboard had to create rules to include streams in their calculations, which was no straightforward ordeal. As it sits now, Billboard has the below rules for streaming unit equivalents:
- Track Equivalent Album (TEA) = All song sales from an album / 10. [10 song downloads equals one album unit
- Streaming Equivalent Album (SEA) = (Premium streaming total / 1,250) + (Free streaming total) / 3,750. [1,250 paid streams equals one album unit. 3,750 free streams equals one album unit]
While the value of streaming plays a big role in determining chart position, individual physical sales are still the most heavy handed way to make a chart impact, which leads us to some new changes Billboard just rolled out to help curb chart manipulation.
Billboard Rule Changes
Beginning at the end of February, Billboard quietly rolled out updates to their requirements for sales, specifically physical sales, to count toward charting. Why is this necessary, you may ask, in the current world of streaming dominance?
Well, a number of artists made it their sole goal to get to the top of the charts and began selling new projects well below market value. These were some big name artists who didn’t actually need the sales revenue and were willing to burn a fair amount of cash just to secure a number one. Drake, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and The Weeknd have all done something like this recently, and I am a bit torn on it. It would be great to have cheaper music available for fans to buy (an indie country vinyl can run you over $50 just for trying to support an up and comer) but it’s also abundantly clear this is mainly done by already dominant artists in a pissing contest for who’s actually the biggest star on the planet.
Many of these heavily discounted albums were also sold direct to consumer (D2C), meaning they by-passed the middle man usually relied on to provide accurate sales data, which opens the door to fraudulent activity.
Here are the updated rules, compiled by the fantastic Chart Data account:
Digital Album Redemption
“Digital albums sold via an artist, label, or other official web store must now be redeemed in order to be chart eligible. In addition, verification using hCaptcha is now required to prevent bots.”
Billboard rule change, effective February 28:
Digital albums sold via an artist, label, or other official web store must now be redeemed in order to be chart eligible.
In addition, verification using hCaptcha is now required to prevent bots.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
Fraudulent Data Crack-Down
“Any D2C store with three submissions of illegitimate data within a 12-month period may receive a minimum 90-day reporting suspension.”
Billboard rule change, effective immediately:
Any D2C store with three submissions of illegitimate data within a 12-month period may receive a minimum 90-day reporting suspension.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
Minimum Pricing Thresholds
“Minimum price for all D2C exclusive digital albums has been raised to $7.99.”
AND
“Minimum price of albums increasing at all retailers: $7.99 – CD $7.99 – Cassette $15.99 – Vinyl”
Billboard rule change, effective April 4:
Minimum price for all D2C exclusive digital albums has been raised to $7.99.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
Billboard rule change, effective April 4:
Minimum price of albums increasing at all retailers:
$7.99 – CD
$7.99 – Cassette
$15.99 – Vinyl— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
Reduction of Recycling
“Only four (4) “digital D2C exclusive versions” will be allowed for the life of an album. Includes deluxe versions.”
Billboard rule change, effective April 4:
Only four (4) "digital D2C exclusive versions" will be allowed for the life of an album. Includes deluxe versions.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
No Mid-Week D2C Exclusives
“”Digital D2C exclusive versions” cannot be put up for sale during the middle of the first week. Either need to be available for pre-order or held for a later week of release.”
Billboard rule change, effective April 4:
"Digital D2C exclusive versions" cannot be put up for sale during the middle of the first week.
Either need to be available for pre-order or held for a later week of release.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
Customer Verification (AKA Stopping the Bots)
Billboard rule change, effective immediately:
Physical D2C shipments which fall outside of "established sales trends" will require the reporting store to provide enhanced tracking status along with other info such as geo-location data and if a VPN was used to make the purchase.
— chart data (@chartdata) March 17, 2025
In Layman’s Terms, What Does This Mean?
Basically, Billboard made it a good bit harder to game the system.
The most important updates in my opinion are those related to bots. It’s long been suspected that some labels or management companies artificially inflate sales numbers by using a number of bots to purchase the album. The requirement for geo-location and VPN data, along with CAPTCHA verification, will make doing this much more difficult.
The cap of four “digital D2C exclusive versions” is another great rule. Some artists (cough cough, Taylor Swift) inundate fans with numerous versions of the same album, released in the days following the LP release. Sales of each of those, prior to these rules, counted towards the original project, making the total reported sales number much higher than it actually was.
The minimum pricing thresholds mean if you’re one of the people who still purchases CD’s, you may be paying a little more for an initial release, but also let’s be honest and say that not many people do this, and if you are one of the people who wants to physically own an album, you’re probably still willing to put down 8 bucks instead of the $4 or $5 that some have been sold for.
Also, unless it’s for an artist who’s specifically engaging in this type of behavior, it’s not going to affect you at all because most physical music copies, especially new originals, sell for much, much higher than this new minimum. This only serves to disincentivize those already on top from pretending they’re more popular than they already are.
TL/DL: These are all good things if you care about the integrity and organic nature of music popularity charts.
Again, it’s not often I get to write about a good thing that some music institution did, but I’m sure happy to be able to do so today.
Shoutout Billboard.
Now if we can get Spotify to do something about bot streaming fraud we’d be cooking… a man can dream, can’t he?
