Here is some important information that I think you should have regarding changes being made to the Nielsen/Billboard charts effective from the tracking week ending Thursday, January 26, 2017, which corresponds to the Billboard charts dated February 11, 2017.
Thank you for making this a wonderful first year for me as CEO of A2IM. I hope you enjoy the holidays and have a prosperous New Year.
– Richard James Burgess
See below from Billboard:
Nielsen Entertainment and Billboard are excited to announce that they will be shifting a host of genre album charts from sales-based to consumption-based (blending pure album sales, track equivalent sales. and streaming equivalent plays).
The change will take effect with the tracking week ending Thursday, January 26, 2017.
That corresponds to the Billboard charts dated February 11, 2017.
The charts that will move to consumption-based are:
Top Country Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B Albums
Top Rap Albums
Top Latin Albums
Latin Pop Albums
Regional Mexican Albums
Tropical Albums
Latin Rhythm Albums
Top Rock Albums
Alternative Rock Albums
Hard Rock Albums
Americana/Folk Albums
Top Dance/Electronic Albums
Christian/Gospel Albums
Top Gospel Albums
Top Christian Albums
Top Catalog Albums
Holiday Albums (to launch officially in Billboard in October 2017).
The new consumption-based genre album charts will include Catalog titles, which is a change from the current methodology each utilizes.
This is to better align these charts with the Billboard 200 and to present a true ranking of each genre’s albums consumption.
Please keep in mind that Billboard and Nielsen will still compile sales-based albums chart for view, but the main chart in each genre in Billboard and/or on Billboard.com will be consumption-based.
Even though the charts will have new formulas, Billboard chart rank history for each list will be connected with the sales-based rank history dating back to each chart’s origin.