Billboard 200 Album Chart To Incorporate Streams

You have to hand it to Billboard - the company recognizes that it has to change with the times and does so on a regular basis. The latest update will come on Dec. 3 when the Billboard 200 album chart will incorporate on-demand streaming and digital track sales as well as the Nielsen Soundscan point-of-sale data that the chart has been based around since 1991.

The Billboard 200 chart will now consider all major streaming services, including Spotify, Beats Music, Google Play and Xbox Music.

In determining the chart, the company will equate 10 downloads to equal 1 album sale, and 1,500 song streams to also equal 1 album sale.

Billboard will continue to publish a traditional equivalent to the former Top 200 chart called Top Album Sales that will rely on traditional Nielsen data to determine rankings.

It's been estimated that there have been more than 100 billion (yes with a "B") streams that have been listened to this year so far. It's great that those streams can now be figured into actual chart rankings.

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