Billboard Charts

The Billboard Charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums globally. The results are published in Billboard Magazine and on Billboard's website. The two major charts, the Hot Singles Chart and Top Albums Chart, are heralded as the official charts. The online extension of the Billboard Charts, provides additional weekly minor charts, as well as official seasonal artist rankings. The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams, trending popularity, or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot Singles Chart, data from all four are used to compile the charts. For the Top Albums Chart, streams and trending popularity are included in addition to album sales.

The weekly charts are monitored on a Sunday-to-Sunday cycle since 2021; previously it was on a Saturday-to-Saturday cycle. Global music releases are currently expected on a Friday. The charts are released each Sunday evening.

## History, Methods and Description

The Billboard Charts were first created in 2013, and consisted of two charts; a singles chart and an album chart. These charts existed with an unknown seemingly-random formula with the aim of tracking popularity of the newest music releases. In 2014, American singer and label executive Katy Perry gained an important stake in Billboard, and assigned herself the duty of overhauling the charts with a more professional standard.

Shortly afterwards, Billboard unveiled their new chart system. The singles and albums charts were officially renamed to the Hot Singles Chart and Top Albums Chart respectively, and both classified as major charts. Four minor charts were also introduced; three for singles - the Digital Songs Chart, Radio Songs Chart and Streaming Songs Chart - and the Digital Albums Chart as the only album-related minor chart. The minor charts would be used to then calculate the major charts, with the Top Albums Chart essentially being a replica of the Digital Albums Chart until 2018. These charts would use a completely new formula and assign chart positions based off their calculation. However, they were not without criticism, as artists took issue with the chart position-based calculated used.

Two years later, the charts were once again overhauled in 2016. This formula change would take into consideration the criticism received by the chart position calculation. Instead, the new charts would calculate chart points and then assign the position in order based off of those points. In a bold move, Billboard would also completely re-calculate all prior charts under this new formula, making any chart under the old formula instantly unofficial. This new formula would be the standard going forward.

In 2017, Billboard would add another feature to their charts; rolling charts. This feature allowed releases to continue charting beyond their inherent season if their chart run had not reached its maximum number of weeks. Then, in 2018, a new minor chart was introduced; the Streaming Albums Chart, which would change the methodology of the Top Albums Chart to account for both digital sales and streaming performance.

Another chart overhaul took place prior to 2021. This overhaul was minor compared to the scale of past overhauls, but still made a number of changes. The chart system would now be mostly automatic, ensuring less errors when preparing the charts weekly. In addition, all of the minor charts received some sort of formula balancing change. Finally, two more minor charts were introduced; the Trending Songs Chart and Trending Albums Chart, each affecting their respective major chart immediately.

In 2023, the charts were once again overhauled with some major and some minor changes. The biggest change would be towards the Trending Charts, as the format of trending entries changed from one entry per artist to one entry per player. These new entries were less restrictive than before and would be applied to all of said player's artists. As such, the charts were changed to a ranking system to accomodate this and fix some previously identified issues with chart over-representation and under-representation. In addition, the premium streams formula on the Streaming Charts changed to a three-tier system that now activates on any streams over 500, as well as to those over 1000. Due to this, the chart ratios for both the Hot Singles Chart and Top Albums Chart were changed to become more equalized.

## Singles

 Digital Songs Chart | Sales
 Radio Songs Chart | Airplay
 Streaming Songs Chart | Streaming
 Trending Songs Chart | Trending

## Albums

 Digital Albums Chart | Sales
 Streaming Albums Chart | Streaming
 Trending Albums Chart | Trending

## Other Charts

In 2016, an All-Time Chart was introduced for both the singles and albums format. This chart would compare the performance on releases on their respective major charts, and would be updated seasonally. Prior to 2021, the all-time charts also existed for minor charts, but were later removed as they demanded too much processing power to maintain.

In 2018, a Legacy Chart was introduced for both the singles and albums format. This chart would use the same mechanics as the major charts at this time, and would give extra chart points to music released five years prior. After 2019, this chart would be closed down, as it would be incompatible with the new chart system, and any chart points gained from it would be permanently removed.

In 2021, Billboard published a new chart list titled the Billboard Artist Rankings. These rankings would be updated seasonally and would compare the chart points of all artists in the industry, with the aim of showcasing the most successful artists in an easy-to-understand ranking.

In 2022, Billboard would start publishing a chart overview segment of images known as the Billboard Artist Hot Sheet. These Hot Sheets would include the number of number-one and top-ten singles and albums received by an artist during the span of their career, alongside their latest position on the aformentioned Artist Rankings, and an easy-to-view list of their top five singles and albums to date. These would be published in Billboard Magazine and on Billboard's social media accounts.