YouTube will stop giving Billboard its music streaming data

YouTube will no longer share its music data with Billboardciting objections to how the publication weights streams when calculating its US music charts. Expected to come into effect next month, the change means BillboardThe rankings will not be able to take YouTube music streaming data into account at all.

In a post published on its official blog on Tuesday, YouTube criticized BillboardGoogle’s policy is to give more weight to subscription-funded and paid feeds than to ad-supported feeds when determining its charts. The video streaming platform said that despite “extensive discussions,” Billboard was “unwilling to make any significant changes” to its position. Billboard has included YouTube data in its chart calculations since 2013 and began giving more weight to paid and subscription streams than ad-supported ones in 2018.

“Billboard “This does not reflect the way fans interact with music today and ignores the massive engagement of fans who do not have a subscription.”

This news comes just a day later Billboard announced changes to how it considers different stream types, aligning more closely with YouTube’s preferences. Still, the update didn’t go far enough to appease its partner of over a decade.

Billboard currently calculates its charts using “album consumption units”. One unit is equivalent to either the sale of an album, the sale of 10 individual tracks from an album, or a set number of on-demand streams of its songs. However, Billboard weights streams differently depending on whether listeners have paid for them or not. It currently requires 1,250 streams via paid or subscription services to equate to one album consumption unit, while 3,750 are required for ad-supported streams.

These calculations will change from January 17 next month. Even if paid or subscription streams will always have more weight than those financed by advertising, Billboard reduces the ratio from 1:3 to 1:2.5. So, one unit of album consumption will only require 1,000 paid or subscription streams or 2,500 ad-supported streams. This represents a 20 percent and 33.3 percent reduction in the number of streams required, respectively.

Anyway, BillboardThe changes made were apparently not enough to satisfy YouTube, which would much prefer all streams to have equal weighting. YouTube will stop providing its music data to Billboard after January 16, one day before BillboardThe changes come into effect.

“Streaming is the primary way people discover music, accounting for 84% of recorded music revenue in the United States,” Cohen wrote. “We simply ask that every stream be counted fairly and equitably, whether subscription-based or ad-supported, because every fan matters and every game should matter.”

For his part, Billboard remains faithful to its new graphical calculations.

“Billboard strives to measure [music fans’] appropriate activity; balanced by various factors including consumer access, revenue analysis, data validation and industry guidance, “a Billboard the spokesperson said in a statement. “We hope that YouTube will reconsider and join Billboard recognizing the reach and popularity of artists across all music platforms and celebrating their achievements [sic] the power of fans and how they interact with the music they love. »