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YouTube is pulling his data from Billboard for use on US music charts by leading publishing companies. This decision is in response to recent developments change Billboard developed according to its schedule, which continues to increase the weight of paid, on-demand advertising compared to ad-supported, free advertising.
Billboard justified its decision to change its old format by saying that the change “will better reflect the changing costs and changing consumer behavior.”
In other words, streaming is now more important than buying albums or songs, so it needs its charts to reflect that.
However, YouTube doesn’t like the new approach because it doesn’t want there to be much – if any – differentiation between free and paid streams, especially if the changes reflect how today’s consumers enjoy music.
“Billboard uses an old-fashioned strategy that expands subscriber-supported streams over ad-supported streams. This doesn’t reflect the way fans engage with music today and ignores the huge impact of non-subscription fans,” a YouTube blog post published Wednesday. he explains. “Playing is the first way people listen to music, up to 84% of US music recording revenue.”
“We’re just asking that every stream be counted fairly and equally, whether it’s from subscriptions or commercials – because every fan is important and every stream deserves to be counted,” the post said.
The change in rankings will be visible starting with the charts published on January 17, which will contain data from January 2-8, 2026. This will affect the Billboard 200 and genre-based charts. Additionally, the ratio between paid/subscription and ad-supported promotions will be adjusted to 2.5:1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard said.
In protesting the new formula, YouTube said it will no longer provide data to Billboard after January 16, 2026.
Here’s what the change means in practice: In the revised calculation, Billboard said it will take 33.3% fewer songs followed by promotions from the album, and 20% fewer paid/subscriptions needed from the album, to match the album’s volume. In short, it will take fewer streams than before for an album to climb the charts. This is a win for full streaming but not for YouTube.
That is why. Currently, the formula used by Billboard defines an album’s share (a standard measure of chart position) as the sales of a single song. It counts each of the 10 tracks from the album as a single track usage, as well.
On the advertising side, it says that a share of the album is equivalent to 3,750 ad campaigns – like YouTube’s – or 1,250 paid/subscriptions for audio and video.
When these changes are made, the numbers will be adjusted, so it will take 2,500 ad impressions or 1,000 paid/subscriptions to count as one album. This means that paid streams count for 2.5x the amount of ad-supported streams. Although this is less than the 3:1 ratio, it is not what YouTube would like to see here. The company is doing what companies do in failed negotiations like this: it’s taking its ball and going home.
Of course, unlike Billboard, YouTube music can’t be considered in the chart rankings, which can cause labels and artists to stop publishing their music on YouTube. This is not a good long-term strategy for YouTube as a key player in the music industry. That is why this move should be seen as the negotiation process that it is.
“We are committed to achieving proper representation on the charts and believe we can work with Billboard to bring them back,” YouTube’s announcement concludes.
