Billboard Retooling Singles List To Restore Eclectic Flavor

When the first Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart was unveiled 40 years ago - in the Aug. 4, 1958, Billboard - the top 10 was a little bit country (Kalin Twins, Duane Eddy) and a little bit rock’n’roll (Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, and Jack Scott).

Peggy Lee’s now classic “Fever” added a taste of jazz and blues, the Coasters and Johnny Otis placed R&B tunes, Perez Prado contributed a slice of Latin flavor, and the chart-topper was a heartfelt pop entry, Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool.”

That top 10’s eclectic mix reflected the wide variety of singles that were available at retail stores and the broad spectrum of genres that were heard at top 40 radio. Those conditions have changed significantly in the intervening years: Radio has become increasingly segmented over the past two decades, especially so over the past few years, and an increasing number of big radio hits have bypassed retail.

With this week’s retooling of the Hot 100, Billboard seeks to utilize new applications of modern technology to restore the eclectic flavor in which the chart was originally steeped.

Just as The Billboard 200’s May 1991 adoption of SoundScan data diversified the content of the album chart, revealing the best sellers regardless of genre, the new Hot 100, with its expanded radio panel and the inclusion of increasingly prevalent airplay-only tracks, instantly becomes a more democratic forum. The goal is simple: to reveal the most popular songs in the United States.

But while the goal was simple, the road that led to the methodology was long, often circuitous, and frequently bumpy. The journey began three years ago, when the only immediate conclusion that became obvious is that there would never be a consensus among labels and distribution executives as to the perfect recipe for this landmark chart.

As our exploration continued, it also became obvious that the chart’s methodology, fashioned in 1991 when the list switched to Broadcast Data Systems’ (BDS) radio-audience impressions and sales data from SoundScan, no longer offered a concise view of the day’s most popular songs.

Changes in label strategy mean that some tracks are not released to retail, while others are marketed late in the song’s radio life. Thus, hugely popular hits were either missing completely or late to arrive on the Hot 100. Country and rap songs that placed solely on the strength of sales, meanwhile, could only climb so high on the chart, because those artists’ audiences were not reflected by our radio panel.

Months of thought, experimentation, test charts of various ingredients, and countless hours of discussion led to this week’s unveiling of The Billboard Hot 100.

The new chart features an allencompassing radio panel of 756 stations, with R&B, adult R&B, mainstream rock, triple-A rock, and country outlets joining the old Hot 100 panel, which was confined to the mainstream top 40, rhythmic top 40, adult top 40, adult contemporary, and modern rock formats.

A select panel of small-market stations, representing markets that are not covered by BDS, continues to contribute playlist information. However, that panel has been pruned to 23 stations. In the previous system, small-market stations accounted for roughly 10 percent of the chart’s points, but in the new system, they encompass less than 5 percent of the point total.

In response to the increasing number of singles that have not been made available at retail, a trend that has spread from rock, pop, and country to R&B in the past few years, airplay-only tracks now qualify for the chart.

The retail component of the chart has been adjusted, in part to reflect the shrinking ranks of singles consumers, from 40 percent of the chart’s points to 25 percent.

The ratio refers to the chart’s overall points and is not applied on a song-for-song basis. In this system, there will be at least 15-20 songs that are driven more by retail points than by radio points. The shift in airplay-to-sales ratio also allows radio-only tracks a healthier chance to compete with retail-available singles, although it will be difficult for a radio-only song to rise all the way to No. 1.

Furthermore, radio-only songs will not be eligible for the Hot 100 until they reach the top 75 of the Hot 100 Airplay chart, while retail-available singles can chart simply on the strength of sales points.