It has been a long time coming, but Billboard will finally add streams and digital downloads to their calculations for the Top 200 Album Charts. The magazine, which has not made such a large change to the Top 200 Album Chart since 1991, is finally looking to the future of music listening, which is heading online and increasingly happening through streaming. It is the biggest change since Billboard started using Nielsen Soundscan data to calculate its formula for the top 200 chart.
According to Fortune Magazine, the change will happen on Nov. 30 and the first chart with the change implemented will be seen on Billboard's website Dec. 4.
The New York Times reports, "SoundScan and Billboard will count 1,500 song streams from services like Spotify, Beats Music, Rdio, Rhapsody and Google Play as equivalent to an album sale. For the first time, they will also count "track equivalent albums" - a common industry yardstick of 10 downloads of individual tracks - as part of the formula for album rankings on the Billboard 200."
The change comes at a time when some artists are questioning the benefits of streaming. Avicii's "Wake Me Up" earned a paltry $12,359 for its 168 million streams on Spotify, causing Aloe Blacc to question how it profits songwriters.
Taylor Swift has had a prolonged and public battle with Spotify after pulling her entire back catalog from the service right as she released her new album, 1989. She has questioned the use of the service, which is easy to do when your album sells 1.287 million copies in the first week.
Skeptics have arisen over the plan, questioning how this would affect the charts and potentially compromise them. The Billboard Hot 100 charts made a big change in 2012, including YouTube views into their equations, which allowed artists like Baauer to top the chart with his single, "Harlem Shake," after it went viral. It has had a few other blips with parody videos going viral and affecting position, but otherwise, those who you would expect have dominated the charts. The large pop acts will remain at the top and there may be a slight push from artists who have built a strong streaming fan base, like Avicii, but otherwise don't expect much if any change.
