I have read that previously about the audio. That initially had made me think no to video, but when something doesn't count, like Pandora, YouTube generally spells it out. And this isn't spelled out. We are inferring. My point was it's very hard to see how Taylor gets to 13.5 million streams last week without YouTube streams since she doesn't do Spotify.
I just doesn't make sense to me that YT would not count for the album if it counts for the single. Plus it's a very popular method of "listening" to music.
I am not inferring anything. I have the Billboard specs and list of what is used in the Billboard 200. Posted on page 1 and YouTube is not on it.
I have confirmed this with Billboard.
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Regarding why not count YouTube -- my understanding is that when they designed the new Billboard 200 chart they did not want novelty videos to distort album popularity.
Taking Taylor Swift, for example --
lambertmusic411 posted this:
Taylor Swift was put forward as an example. So let's break it down:
Taylor's Billboard 200 total was 69,507.
We know she sold 34,320 albums last week.
Style = 27,000 units
Shake It Off = 23,000 units
Bad Blood = 218,000 units
Blank Space = 19,000 units
6 other tracks from "1989" = 14,000 units
Total tracks = 301,000 ,units = 30,100 TEA
Since Billboard 200 number of 69,507 = Album Sales + TEA + SEA
We know 69,507 = 34,320 + 30,100 + __________
Solving for the SEA = 5,087
5,087 x 1,500 = 7,630,500 streams
Seems like a lot because Taylor Swift is not on Spotify -- but Spotify is only 8% of the US Audio On Demand Streams. There are now 125,000,000 on demand audio streams in the US each month. So is it believable that the an artist who sold 300,000 tracks last week had 7 million streams. I think so.
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And what if YT plays counted?
Bad Blood was released on May 17, 2015. It has 197 million views. That would be 197,000,000/1,500 = 131,000 album equivalents in 4 weeks or 32,833 album equivalents per week. Even if the rate dropped by 50% from the time the video was released, that is too much.
>> If 40% of her YouTube streams are in the US, and if the fall off was 50% from week 1 to week 2.
>> And that is not her only official video. I am too tired to add them all up.
Well for the week ending 6.14.15, she would have about 100,000 albums + TEA + SEA and would have been the number one album knocking off MUSE -- even though they sold 75K albums.
It distorts the album chart too much. It magnifies the effect of one big hit song like Bad Blood way too much. When it comes to the singles chart, Bad Blood is the most popular single in the US and will top the chart -- again.