The Billboard charts are about to change again

The music charts published by Billboard (with data from Luminate) are how the recorded music industry keeps score. In the old days, chart positions were determined solely by sales and radio airplay. But over the years, music consumption has changed. Billboard has had to account for things like sales of digital albums, sales of digital singles, and all the different flavours of streaming (paid, free, video). Coming up with an accurate ranking of what people are actually listening to and buying has become insanely complicated.

Now, a new adjustment. Billboard has changed its weighting formula to give more heft to paid/subscription plays of songs/albums over listens to the same songs/albums on a free platform. One paid stream on, say, Apple Music, is worth 2.5 times than a free listen on Spotify’s ad-supported platform. The old ratio used to be 1:3, so this move actually increases the statistical value of a free stream.

This, however, has greatly annoyed YouTube, the number two streamer of free music (Spotify is still number one).

Lyor Cohen, the head of YouTube Music, says that this is still an “outdated formula” and “doesn’t reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription.” In response, YouTube is going to pull all its data from Billboard’s American music charts starting on January 16.

Billboard says it is committed to a “balanced by various factors including consumer access, revenue analysis, data validation and industry guidance.” They’re opeing that “YouTube reconsiders.”

As for Spotify? Head of music Charlie Hellman posted this:

Spotify has both ad-supported and paid streams. All listening activity matters. But I think it’s right to weight paid streams more. People paying ~$150 per year for music…it means more, shows a greater level of fan intent, and is better for artists and the ecosystem. https://t.co/A2qLDRNwE2

— Charlie Hellman (@Hellmania) December 17, 2025

This will be interesting. Anytime Billboard makes a tweak to its formula, chart positions get scrambled over the course of a week. How will this and the YouTube move affect things in late January 2026? We’ll see.