The Beginning of Modern Day Charting on the Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and now globally. The Billboard Hot 100 Singles is the music industry’s standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard Magazine. Singles are music releases to promote an artist’s album. The Billboard Hot 100 has been in existence since the late ’50s, although the premise began as the Top 100. From its beginning, the Billboard Hot 100 Singles created its own formula to rank the biggest singles in the country. However, Billboard sparked a new era for its hit chart, with a major change to its methodology. On November 30th of 1991, the Billboard Hot 100 Singles went through a major innovation. Billboard Magazine revitalized the chart to accurately track purchased singles and radio airplay. Retail singles, at this time, were available in a variety of formats such as: cassettes, CDs, 7″ vinyl, and 12″ vinyl records.
A BACKGROUND ON THE BILLBOARD HOT 100 COMPILATION
The Billboard Hot 100 Singles has been the go to chart for hit songs. It has become the premier hit barometer for the most popular songs in the country. Whenever you hear “It’s the number one song”, it usually refers to the Hot 100. It has been a source for radio and the music industry. Everyday people have used the chart to check out and purchase the latest and greatest singles out there or releases by their favorite artists.
The Hot 100 chart actually began as multiple charts, which measured the best sellers in different categories. The Top 100 chart started in 1955, which gave a snapshot of these bestsellers. Airplay, sales and jukebox play were used for the chart criteria. Jukebox play was discontinued in 1957. The Top 100 was eventually rolled into the well known Hot 100 Singles in the late ’50s, as an all-encompassing music chart. The chart continued to use airplay and sales to compile the weekly rankings.
The process for retrieving airplay and sales reports included calling and also faxing retail outlets and radio stations. It sometimes included messenger services. Sales reports came from national and regional chain stores, independent stores and one-stop distributors. A one-stop distributor is a firm that offers a multitude of products or services to its customers. The reports included lists of the bestselling singles, movers and shakers and other pertinent sales information. I should also note that sales were largely based on shipment units, 500,000 = Gold, 1,000,000 = Platinum, 2,000,000 = 2X Platinum, etc. The gold and platinum certifications are awarded by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). For airplay, the reports were compiled from national Top 40 playlists. Radio stations submitted ranked playlists of the most popular songs on radio. The reports included songs that were added or dropped from playlists, and it additionally highlighted songs racking up massive airplay. Airplay reports were retrieved from large market stations usually based in major metropolitan areas. The reports also included airplay statistics from mid-size and small market stations.
CHANGING TIMES FOR THE HOT 100 CHART
While Billboard established a system to compile its hit singles chart, there were many problems with it. In many instances, sales numbers could be incorrect or outright lied about. Retail stores could play favorites with certain artists and singles, sometimes with incentive from record labels. Airplay playlists were not always very accurate, as songs could be misrepresented in their rankings. Songs were too often removed from playlists right after its peak, even though it still could be accumulating airplay. There was also that age old deceptive practice called “payola”, when record companies bribed radio stations to play certain songs, usually over and over again. It would falsely inflate the airplay and sales. That’s cheating record companies, shame on you! The information received was based on an honor system, relying on the accuracy of the given data. Furthermore, there was a real lack of hard data. This in turn created inaccurate results on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles. The system of obtaining and using reports was still in place by the early ’90s. However, Billboard was already looking into a better representation for the chart before that.
In 1987, Billboard became a subsidiary of BPI Communications, who was a major media conglomerate. During this time, BPI acquired Broadcast Data Systems.
Broadcast Data Systems (BDS) was an up-and-coming high-tech firm, who developed new and innovative radio technologies. One of their biggest innovations was tracking radio airtime, particularly in music. Billboard took an interest in BDS and eventually worked directly with them. This began a new development for tracking radio airplay reports. It was all accomplished through a computerized airplay monitoring system. Radio stations would be electronically monitored by Broadcast Data Systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The data collection would be utilized by an encoded audio fingerprint. An audio fingerprint is used to identify sound recordings over the radio. In this case, it would be used to identify a song. The new technology will count each song played on the monitored stations. Each play of the song will be multiplied by the number of listeners at the time that it was heard, using Arbitron data. Arbitron is a consumer research company that collected audience data on radio. The songs are then ranked by the total number of spins and audience size equaling out to the gross impressions of the songs played. The data would be sent from Arbitron to Billboard to tabulate these rankings for the airplay chart. This all ties into audience impressions. It is the total number of listeners exposed to a song from monitored stations playing the song. BDS monitored radio stations from large metropolitan areas as well as the smaller radio stations outside of major population areas.
Billboard would collect sales information by a new company, called SoundScan, founded by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991. SoundScan developed new technologies in point-of-sales (POS) systems, with a focus on tracking sales of music.
The sales tracking system was accomplished through a computer program. Retailers would be supplied with POS cash registers. The new system keeps count of all sales from the barcodes scanned by cash registers, when consumers purchased a CD, cassette or record. Each sale was recorded to a national sales database administered by SoundScan. The sales are then transmitted to Billboard. Billboard receives the sales from SoundScan, and tabulates the data by ranking the actual sales numbers. Each item sold could now be properly accounted for, greatly reducing errors and inaccuracies.
Billboard Magazine added a new feature on October 20, 1984. Billboard published the HOT 100 SALES & AIRPLAY chart. The detailed information listed song titles with the highest chart points in their sales and airplay, with its respective position on the Hot 100 chart. The new feature functioned as a supplemental chart to the Hot 100. It was originally a 30 position chart, but it was later 40 positions.
Billboard Magazine first aimed to restructure the airplay reporting. After working behind the scenes with BDS, Billboard published the first Top 40 Radio Monitor (later renamed HOT 100 Airplay) on the week of December 8th, 1990. The new chart now applied the BDS (Broadcast Data Systems). Songs are ranked by their gross impressions, the number of times each song is played by the audience size. The chart was not yet used towards the Hot 100 Singles. It was published weekly as a test chart beginning on this date. Then, Billboard published the first SoundScan sales data chart under the Top POS Singles Sales (later renamed HOT 100 Singles Sales) on the week of June 8th, 1991. POS stands for point of sale. The singles were ranked by their sales totals. This was also used for test data and not towards the Hot 100 Singles. The POS sales chart became a weekly feature along with the airplay monitor. Both charts were expanded to 75 positions, and highlighted the songs with the strongest airplay and sales respectively. The newly published charts served as a comparison to the main Hot 100 chart.
The test data and the current Hot 100 chart were miles apart. The sales data using reports did not match up to the more precise SoundScan test data. Airplay stats on the Top 40 Radio Monitor also produced different results than the airplay reports used back then. Billboard also discovered that radio stations kept songs in rotation longer than expected. Sales could also linger on as well.
One glaring example was Paula Abdul’s “Promise of a New Day”, which hit # 1 in September of ‘91. “Promise of a New Day” only reached # 5 on the airplay monitor and # 25 on the POS sales chart. Her single would not have hit # 1, if the monitor and point of sales were in use.
Similarly, Roxette’s “Fading Like a Flower” hit # 2 around the same. On the test data charts, the airplay only reached # 11 and sales # 23, after the single peaked on the Hot 100. Billboard Magazine worked meticulously behind the scenes to perfect and work on their new system. The days of calling and faxing radio stations and retail outlets were numbered.
The singles market reflected a wide variety of tastes in different musical genres on the chart. It was not predominantly pop music anymore. R&B, rap, alternative rock, dance music, hard rock, and even metal were collectively making an impact in consumer tastes for singles. Billboard began to notice the fragmentation of the then Hot 100 system during this time. What was gaining popularity in some cases, was considered more underground or niche market. These were singles that otherwise may not have reached too high or at all with the chart parameters at that time. Billboard’s main album chart, The Top 200 Albums (Billboard 200), saw the same trends happening on the chart. Additionally, country music began to make inroads on the Billboard 200 as well.
Moving forward to the last week of the old charting method, Michael Bolton’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” was the number one song. Michael Jackson had the highest debut at No. 35 with “Black or White”, the first single from his highly anticipated album “Dangerous.” “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss” was rising fast to number 3. Billboard Magazine was then set to debut the completely revamped Hot 100 Singles chart for the following week of November 30th, 1991. This new methodology would utilize the BDS and SoundScan technologies.
THE DEBUT OF THE NEW BROADCAST DATA SYSTEMS AND SOUNDSCAN BILLBOARD CHART
The new system goes live on the week of November 30, 1991. This date will forever be remembered for the completely revitalized Hot 100 Singles. We are now introduced to the first Billboard Hot 100 chart using Broadcast Data Systems and SoundScan, which were finally put into use. The BDS monitored airplay component now tracked 85 markets (122 stations) each week in the Top 40 Radio Monitor chart. The number of stations grew rapidly during the ‘90s and thereafter. Billboard continued to track smaller markets not monitored by BDS, using traditional playlists provided by small market stations. Smaller markets became less prevalent over time. The actual airplay is now factored in. When the airplay monitor started, the tracking week was monitored from Monday through Sunday. It was changed from Wednesday to Tuesday for the tracking week, beginning on December 14, 1991.
The POS unit sales computation is now collected from over 11,000 retail and rack locations from nationwide and regional chains, and independent stores. Rack locations are stores that is not a record store or in the business of selling music, but would stock and sell cassettes, CDs, etc. The number of merchandisers reporting to SoundScan would increase immensely during the ’90s and well beyond. SoundScan tracked sales from Monday to Sunday for the weekly sales numbers. RIAA gold and platinum records retained the same criteria for awards. However, the sales now factored actual piece counts of how much was sold. It would no longer go by estimates of what was shipped. Listed below is the entire chart for the inaugural week of the BDS/SoundScan era.
The November 30th chart is somewhat confusing. The Last Week positions and 2 Weeks Ago positions had completely different numbers from what Billboard published for those weeks. Chart watchers and music industry professionals especially took note of this. The reason behind this is that these numbers used data from the test charts done behind the scenes. The weeks on chart column retained the same information. The test chart rankings for the two previous weeks were published to allow readers to compare apples to apples, rather than comparing an obsolete methodology.
Hip-Hop group, P.M. Dawn’s, “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss” was awarded the honor of the first #1 single of the BDS/SoundScan era. On its seventh week, the song reached number one. According to the test data, the song could have been number one for at least three weeks, but it was actually # 1 for its first week. The single was # 1 in sales, and # 3 in airplay from the real time data. Singles could now spend longer times on the chart and at the # 1 position if the sales and airplay points were large enough.
THE REAL TIME COMPARISON
I designed a chart for a real time comparison using the actual numbers from the previous week of November 23rd, 1991, listed under the Last Week column. The Weeks On Chart are based on the historical data for that week too. The This Week column is the chart positions for Nov. 30th. The new chart method moved around many of the singles on the chart. The songs with gains are bolded and highlighted in yellow. Singles with gains for the week and upward chart movement are commonly referred to, as a “bullet” for Billboard chart terminology.
MOVERS, DROPS, AND REBOUNDS
Michael Bolton (#2) and Prince (#5) managed to get to # 1 in the last 2 weeks of the old chart method (see Nov 30 1991 Main Chart). According to the BDS/SoundScan data, those songs would not have made it to the Number 1 position. #12, “Don’t Cry” and #26, “I Wonder Why” got into the Top 10 to # 10 and # 9 just in the nick of time within the last 2 weeks before the changeover. Michael Jackson’s new single, Black or White, would have debuted at number 19 and shot to # 3.
Now, using the Real Time Comparison Chart, Jackson’s single actually made an extraordinary jump from 35-3. Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile” debuted on the previous week, and then made a big move upward from 93 to 51. She was on the go. Some songs rebounded such as the # 9 song “Do Anything” by Natural Selection and the # 8 song “O.P.P.” by Naughty by Nature. These two songs returned to the Top 10 as shown in the above figure. Mariah Carey’s single “Emotions” shot back up to # 15, after sliding downward to # 33. However, the biggest rebounds on the Nov 30th chart were Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations” which was suddenly back into the top 40 from #67 to #27. Then you have Color Me Badd’s, “I Adore Mi Amor,” jumping over 50 places to #36! The three aforementioned songs were former number one songs, weeks before the changeover. Geto Boys, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me”, regained its place on the chart at #33, after losing its bullet from falling to # 37. “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” would hang in there long enough to surprise many Billboard singles followers.
In addition to singles moving up or going back up rapidly, some singles resulted in a pushback and in some cases making huge drops. Lisa Stansfield’s, “Change” (#44), and Roxette’s, “Spending My Time” (#45), got pushed right out of the top 40 while still maintaining its bullet. Poor Nia Peeples, her song, Street of Dreams (# 20) was # 12 from the week before and looked like it was going to be a top ten hit. Then it was pushed down to 20, and was already losing steam! Gloria Estefan’s “Live for Loving You” was the Power Pick Airplay (the biggest gains in airplay), even though it was down a notch from the previous week. Song #s 26, 40, 41, 43, 65, 77, 86 and 87 experienced major drops from their previous week’s positions. The biggest fall was EMF’s, “Lies.” The single was already losing its momentum in the previous week and made a big crash falling from #18 to #65 on the new chart! That’s a drop of nearly 50 spots.
The new methodology gave a different view of buyer’s tastes in the singles market. Popular music tastes were more segmented, and shifting towards specific musical genres. The revised chart formula showed that traditional Top 40/Pop Music was not actually the most popular tastes in the overall singles market. Billboard already adapted the SoundScan sales system to the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart on May 25, 1991. The outcomes produced some astonishing results at the top. Consumers were purchasing much more alternative, country, metal, and rap, than previously reported. Metallica, N.W.A., Van Halen, Skid Row, Garth Brooks would be sharing the top spot during the year with the likes of Paula Abdul, Michael Bolton, Michael Jackson, and Natalie Cole. Seven albums debuted at # 1. Alt Rock/Grunge favorite, Nirvana, would certainly make a big splash on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Top 200 Albums in the upcoming weeks. 1991 was a game changer in the realm of popular music, and both the singles and albums chart now reflected this.
THE RECURRENT RULE
Starting with this date, Billboard introduced the new recurrent rule. Recurrent status are singles which have fallen off the Hot 100 Singles chart, after its initial run. It’s like a retirement home for singles. This chart was used for recent songs put into recurrent status. The Hot 100 Recurrent Singles debuted on this week. The recurrent singles had 30 positions on this chart.
With the new chart methodology in place, Billboard introduced the 20 Week Recurrent Rule. The “20/20 Recurrent Rule” was in effect for the first 2 months. Singles that went below the top 20 after 20 weeks went to recurrent status. Those singles were then removed from the chart. This allowed rising songs a chance to move up as some older songs rebounded and spent more time in the top 20. Chart movement could now be very unpredictable with singles dropping and making sudden surges. The 20/20 Recurrent Rule got moved up to the Top 40 on January 25th of 1992, becoming a 20/40 rule. It was finally moved to the Top 50 in April of 1992, remaining a 20/50 rule. Singles below the top 40 were given up to 20 weeks to move into the top 40. If songs were below the top 40 after 20 weeks, the single was removed from the chart to recurrent status. By April of 92′, the recurrent rule was changed to singles falling below number 50 after 20 weeks.
As it stands now, the recurrent status has stayed this way with a 20/50 status. Due to the slower chart movement, singles eventually spent lengthier times on the chart, especially within the top 40 and the top 10. The # 50 position was the most logical point to cut off descending singles spending 20 + weeks on the chart. Billboard unanimously agreed that 20 weeks was a fair enough time for cut off points.
The only exception was #25 on the November 30th chart, “With You,” by Tony Terry. The single was still gaining points while still above the top 20 on the previous week and even slightly on the opening week of the BDS/SoundScan chart. The song dropped to # 25 for its final week.
THE LEGACY OF NOVEMBER 30, 1991
Billboard and Nielsen were under the same ownership from 1999-2009, by the Dutch media conglomerate (VNU). Broadcast Data Systems and SoundScan eventually became part of The Nielsen Company. Nielsen is the well known data collection and marketing organization, which measures audiences for television, radio and newspapers. In 2002, the two entities were then known as Nielsen BDS and Nielsen SoundScan, also referred to as Nielsen Music. Nielsen also acquired Arbitron and rebranded it as Nielsen Audio, which collects listener data. In 2019, Nielsen was acquired by Valence Media, Billboard’s parent company, and rebranded its music data as MRC Data. BDS and SoundScan are now owned and operated by MRC data. Nielsen Audio continues to provide listener data with MRC’s audience information for Billboard. The tracking week for sales and airplay now begins on Friday and ends on Thursday.
The reconfigured chart gave power to the consumers with real time data. BDS and SoundScan allowed the Hot 100 Singles to remain as current as possible and to give proper representation to new and up-and-coming artists and tracks. The Billboard Hot 100 continues to stay up to date on the latest technologies and how people listen to and purchase music. November 30th of 1991 will forever serve as the blueprint of how singles and popular songs would be tracked on the various Billboard charts.
Billboard Chart Rewind 
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