Both music fans and musicians alike have voiced their issues with the way that Billboard weighs its streamed music. Many of those complaints come from how the Billboard 200 chart (which calculates album sales) equates 1,500 streams to one album sale. Another complaint was how paid subscription services and ad-based streaming services were weighed the same on the Billboard 200 chart. Now, everything is being updated.
According to Billboard (in reference to the Hot 100 chart which ranks singles), at the beginning of Nielsen’s third quarter of 2018 (sales and streams in the week of June 29 to July 5, which will be reflected on Billboard charts dated July 14), "plays on paid subscription-based services (such as Apple Music and Amazon Music) or on the paid subscription tiers of hybrid paid/ad-supported platforms (such as Spotify and SoundCloud) will be given more weight in chart calculations than plays on ad-supported services (such as YouTube) or on the non-paid tiers of hybrid paid/ad-supported services."
Paid subscription streams will represent 1 point value per play, ad-supported streams will get 2/3 point value per play, and programmed streams will be awarded 1/2 point value per play. The points will be calculated into how the singles are then charted.
The Billboard 200 chart will also now have two tiers. Tier one gives paid subscription audio streams more weight than tier two. Tier two, which includes ad-supported audio streams, will need 3,750 streams to equal one album sale, while tier one will need 1,250 streams to equal that same single album sale.
