YouTube Streams Will Once Again Count Toward Billboard Charts

Huge news for chart nerds and aspiring chart-topping musicians: Billboard will soon count YouTube streams again when tabulating its music charts. The change will take place starting in 2027, according to a blog post from YouTube executive and music industry veteran Lyor Cohen.Measuring the popularity of recorded music with charts is a tricky endeavor, partially because so many of the vectors are moving targets. What people are listening to is in a constant state of flux, but so is how people are listening. There have always been flaws in Billboard's methodology, like in the '90s, when a song could only crack the primary singles chart, the Hot 100, if it had been officially released as a single, even if it was all over the radio and MTV. Speaking of which, music video plays on TV have never counted toward the charts, even when networks like MTV, VH1, BET, and CMT were dictating cultural taste to a widespread extent.The internet and television are different beasts, and music videos did factor into Billboard's calculations once they were on YouTube. YouTube's streaming data was first factored into Billboard's tabulations in February 2013, which immediately allowed Baauer's meme-friendly hit "Harlem Shake" to shake up the charts as listeners flocked to hundreds of user-made videos featuring the track. In 2019, Billboard incorporated YouTube's data into its main album chart, the Billboard 200.But YouTube withdrew its data from Billboard in January of this year, complaining that Billboard's "outdated" system placed too much weight on subscription-backed streams and unfairly deprioritized free, ad-supported streams. "This doesn't reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription," Cohen wrote at the time.Now, Billboard has relented. "We are returning to the Billboard charts starting in 2027," Cohen writes. "Billboard’s new methodology better reflects how fans engage with music today across both subscription and ad-supported services." Billboard specifies that YouTube stats will inform the rankings beginning with the Jan. 16, 2027 charts, which will measure listening between Jan. 1-7.The haggling seemed to be over how YouTube streams would be counted on the Billboard 200. Under the current rules, 2,500 ad-supported streams count the same as one full album purchase (physical or digital). The new rules reduce the one album equivalent to 1,500 ad-supported streams. Under both the old and new rules, one album purchase is equal to 1,000 paid/subscription streams. As a result, expect the distinction between the album and singles charts to continue to blur.