Billboard Incorporates More Digital Info

Earlier this year, Billboard started including data on digital sales and information about a song's online streaming in its Hot 100 singles charts (all genres).  Originally, Billboard relied primarily on radio station air play to measure a song's popularity - and for music genre charts like Country-Western, Latin, and Hip-Hop, it limited its data to radio stations whose exclusive program focus was that genre.  Thus, the genre charts failed to incorporate digital plays and sales, or the success that cross-over artists achieved in other genres.
  Last week, Billboard announced the creation of a new chart for R&B music, to better distinguish that genre from Hip-Hop.  More importantly, though, Billboard changing how it calculated its top singles charts for various genres.  First, it will expand the number of stations included in determining airplay counts.  Then, it will use the hybrid formula developed for the Hot 100 chart to reflect digital online sales of singles, and airplay counts from major streaming services.  This should provide a more inclusive basis for measuring artist and song popularity.
  The recording industry welcomed the change.  Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), released the following statement.

"With digital downloads hitting record highs and streaming services such as Spotify, Muve, Slacker, Rhapsody, Rdio, MOG, Sony Music Unlimited and Xbox Music continuing to grow, the impact of digital music is growing more and more pronounced... We are happy to see that Billboard recognizes this trend and is taking steps to ensure that its charts will continue to serve as the industry standard well into the future."

 Source - Billboard shakes up charts to include digital, streaming data, CEN Audio blog