User:Jdbethel/Billboard launches new chart as digital sales rocket

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 

On March 15th, music organization Billboard introduced a new “On-Demand Songs” chart to their list. In association with Nielsen and digitalmusic.org, the new chart will compile the data on songs the music listeners stream on a day-to-day basis. The information collected will also be used in Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

This event marks a music industry trend that has slowly developed over the past several years. Digital sales doubled from 2004 to 2010 while consumers are bought nearly half the compact discs in 2010 compared to 2004.

“I think it’s a great change, but I feel like the industry hasn’t fully embraced it,” said Zack Harper from Chicago, known musically as Epos Flow. He relies on the digital medium to promote his project. “It has caused a shift towards the independent artist rather than the traditional record label model,” Harper said.

The editorial director of Billboard, Bill Werde said “Billboard always recognizes trends in the way fans experience music. With some of these services growing exponentially and integrating into the social web, the time is right to launch a streaming chart and to incorporate this activity into the Hot 100.”

Sources

http://www.billboard.com/news/hot-100-impacted-by-new-on-demand-songs-1006453952.story#/news/hot-100-impacted-by-new-on-demand-songs-1006453952.story Hot 100 Impacted by New On-Demand Songs Chart Billboard staff Billboard 14 Mar 2012

Zack Harper