Billboard, the leading global destination for charts, news, trends and innovations in music, and Nielsen Music, the industry’s leading source for music data and insights, have announced the evolution of its genre album charts to a consumption methodology, following the successful conversion of the iconic Billboard 200 to a multi-metric chart, including traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
The transformed genre charts will match the Billboard 200 formula, equating ten digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale (TEA), as well as 1,500 on-demand song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale (SEA).
“We’ve been thrilled with the reception to the Billboard 200 album consumption methodology and how it reflects album popularity in today’s world, where music is accessible on so many platforms,” says Silvio Pietroluongo, VP of charts and data development at Billboard. “The conversion of genre album charts to consumption reinforces how this approach has become the accepted measure of album success.”
“Nielsen Music is committed to setting the industry standard for music measurement and reporting,” says Erin Crawford, SVP Entertainment and GM Music at Nielsen. “Music Connect recently introduced genre album consumption charts and we’re excited to work with Billboard as they further adopt this methodology. As the leading music measurement service on the market, Music Connect will continue to present all of Billboard’s consumption, streaming, sales and airplay charts.”
The first newly-formulated genre album consumption charts will premiere on billboard.com on Tuesday, January 31 (with charts dated February 11), and will reflect album sales, track sales and audio on-demand streaming data, tracked by Nielsen Music, for the week ending Thursday, January 26th.
The charts making the move to a consumption methodology are:
· Top Country Albums
· Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, plus:
o Top R&B Albums
o Top Rap Albums
· Top Rock Albums, plus:
o Alternative Albums
o Hard Rock Albums
o Americana/Folk Albums
· Top Latin Albums, plus:
o Latin Pop Albums
o Regional Mexican Albums
o Tropical Albums
o Latin Rhythm Albums
· Top Dance/Electronic Albums
· Top Gospel Albums
· Top Christian Albums, plus:
o Christian/Gospel Albums
· Soundtracks
· Top Catalog Albums
· Top Holiday Albums
**Billboard will also continue to publish pure album sales charts for the above genres, comprising Nielsen’s sales data, exclusively**
The move to a consumption methodology will ensure that the top-ranked titles each week on the above charts will align as the top titles of those genres on the Billboard 200.
On-Demand audio subscription services contributing to the Billboard 200, and the above charts under their new methodology, are Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Slacker, Napster, Google Play, Groove Music and Medianet.
