Starting with July 14 rankings, Billboard is expanding the streaming music services that contribute to the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts. It will start including data from paid subscription streams from both Pandora and iHeartRadio, provided by Nielsen Music. The debut will include streaming data from the week of June 29 through July 5.

Pandora’s programmed radio streams have been included in the Billboard Hot 100 since January 2017. The new change means that Billboard will now include Pandora’s Premium and Plus subscription results. Billboard is also adding iHeartRadio’s All Access and Plus subscription tiers. Its programmed radio streams and streaming menu of terrestrial radio stations will not be included in the chart rankings.

The week for the rankings change is the same week that Billboard is shifting its emphasis more to paid streams versus freemium models with ad-supported streams. Billboard made the initial announcement last October, but it took until May before Billboard had figured out how it would all work. Starting with the first week of Nielsen’s third quarter, plays on paid subscription services like Apple Music or Amazon Music and paid subscription services on freemium services like SoundCloud and Spotify will receive more weight in chart calculations than plays on ad-supported or free services.

According to Billboard’s May 1 announcement, Billboard will have multiple weighted tiers of streaming plays for the Hot 100. Paid subscription streams will receive a full point value per play, ad-support streams will receive two-thirds of a point value per play, and programmed streams will receive a half-point per play. Those values are applied to the chart’s formula along with all-genre radio airplay and digital song sales information with streaming having the heaviest weight overall.

The Billboard 200 will now include two tiers of on-demand streams. Tier 1 will include paid subscription audio streams (1,250 streams to 1 album unit) and Tier 2 will include ad-supported audio streams (3,500 streams to 1 album unit). Trial subscription streams that offer the same benefits as a Tier 1 subscription will be considered Tier 1. Video streams will not be incorporated.

‘The shift to a multi-level streaming approach to Billboard’s chart methodology is reflective of a global push to measure streams in a revenue-reflective and access-based manner. Music is now being consumed on streaming services in more diverse ways, migrating from a pure on-demand experience to a more diverse selection of listening preferences (including playlists and radio) and the various options in which a consumer can access music differs based on their subscription commitment,’ said Billboard staff in the announcement.

Billboard will take a deeper dive, starting in 2019. At that time, Billboard 200 will separate paid subscription streams into two tiers. The higher tier will include paid subscriptions with full music library access and no restrictions to on-demand functions; the lower tier will be for paid subscriptions that offer partial access to a music library or limited on-demand functions. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Billboard will re-evaluate all ratios for the streaming tiers. If it chooses to make additional changes, it will do so in early 2019.

Insider Take:

As paid streaming subscriptions become more popular, it makes sense for Billboard to reconfigure its formulas to ensure it is giving fair rankings to music. The company seems to be evolving alongside streaming subscriptions, so this may be one iteration of many. We love that they’ve built in a check-in period at the end of the year to see how things are going and to see if they got it right. We’ll be watching – or listening – to see what’s next.