<\/p>\n
Billboard<\/a> is making changes to how it weighs streams in its album and singles charts, and the new method will give more influence to free\/ad-supported streams. It will also weigh streamed music more when calculating album sales.<\/p>\n According to a notice<\/a> on the Billboard<\/em> website, starting on January 17 (for charts for the week of January 2-8), Billboard<\/em> will count a smaller number of streams as being equivalent to an album sale.<\/p>\n Currently, one \u201calbum consumption unit\u201d is equal to one sale of an album, or 10 sales of songs from an album, or 1,250 paid\/subscription streams of songs from an album, or 3,750 free\/ad-supported streams of songs from an album.<\/p>\n As of January 17, 2026, it will take only 2,500 free\/ad-supported streams<\/strong> or 1,000 paid\/subscription streams<\/strong> to equal one album sale.<\/p>\n In effect, this will mean it will take 33.3% fewer<\/strong> free\/ad-supported streams to equal an album sale, and 20% fewer<\/strong> paid\/subscription streams to equal and album sale.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s hard to forecast exactly how this will affect the relative standing of artists on the charts, one thing is clear: It will mean Billboard<\/em> will be counting a higher number of album equivalent sales.<\/p>\n The changes will apply to the Billboard 200<\/em>, the publication\u2019s main chart tracking album sales in the US, as well as \u201ccorresponding genre album consumption charts.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, Billboard<\/em> is changing the weighting of free\/ad-supported streams of songs relative to paid\/subscription streams, with free streams now counting more towards chart placement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Billboard charts will add more weight to on-demand streaming to better reflect an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n Billboard<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Until now, Billboard<\/em> had counted a paid\/subscription stream as being worth three times as much as a free\/ad-supported stream. Under the new calculation, a subscription stream will count as equal to 2.5 free\/ad-supported streams.<\/p>\n The effect will be that users of free\/ad-supported streams will have somewhat more influence over chart rankings than they had so far.<\/p>\n Billboard<\/em> says the changes are being made \u201cto better reflect an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n Streaming has been growing in its influence on the Billboard<\/em> charts since 2007<\/a>, when Billboard<\/em> first began reporting streams in its Hot 100 (top singles) chart, initially drawing on data from services like AOL<\/strong> and Yahoo!<\/strong>. Spotify<\/a><\/strong> became a part of the calculation in 2012.<\/p>\n The Billboard 200<\/em> chart of top albums began counting digital album equivalents in 2014, and in 2018, Billboard<\/em> adjusted the formula<\/a> to give more weight to paid\/subscription streams versus free\/ad-supported streams.<\/p>\n In 2020, Billboard<\/em> added video streams<\/a> of songs, on services such as YouTube<\/a><\/strong>, to its measurement of the Billboard 200<\/em> chart.Music Business Worldwide<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.musicbusinessworldwide.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Billboard is making changes to how it weighs streams in its album and singles charts, and the new method will give more influence to free\/ad-supported streams. It will also weigh streamed music more when calculating album sales. According to a notice on the Billboard website, starting on January 17 (for charts for the week of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2203812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2203811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/On-demand-streams-to-count-more-under-Billboards-new-method-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2203811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2203813,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203811\/revisions\/2203813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2203812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2203811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2203811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2203811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n