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eric_a
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 10:44am | IP Logged
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Hope this isn't off topic -- since we talk a lot about American Top 40 here, I suspect someone has an answer to this.
Listening to old AT40s, at least in the early '70s, the show claims to play the 40 top-selling singles, but the show uses the Hot 100, which incorporates both sales and airplay data.
By chance, I found similarly curious claims in a Billboard story from 1970. The writer says AT40 would play the top 40 from the Hot 100, but he also called these songs the "major-selling 40."
Can anyone reconcile these claims? Was the Hot 100 so heavily weighted to sales that "top selling singles" was reasonable shorthand?
Billboard story from May 1970
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 10:52am | IP Logged
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What page is the story on, Eric?
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eric_a
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 11:06am | IP Logged
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Brian W. wrote:
| What page is the story on, Eric? |
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It starts in the middle of page 1, and there's a hyperlink jump to the conclusion.
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mstgator
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 6:38pm | IP Logged
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I've read somewhere (vague enough for ya?) that prior to 1973 or so, the Hot 100 was weighted more toward sales than airplay. I don't know if this is valid or not, and if so by how much.
But the idea of "top selling singles" being shorthand at the time (accurate or not) certainly holds water. Check out the description on the Easy Listening chart from that same issue of Billboard:
"These are the best selling middle-of-the-road singles compiled from national retail sales and radio station air play listed in rank order."
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 7:39pm | IP Logged
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Clearly from that last statement, they use the term "best selling" to mean based on "retail sales and radio station airplay". So it's probably always been a combo of the 2. As for the weight of airplay vs. sales, I believe this has changed from time to time, certainly in the '80s and '90s.
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eric_a
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| Posted: 17 October 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged
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Good catch - thanks!
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 18 October 2009 at 5:25am | IP Logged
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The Hot 100 has always been a combination of sales and airplay. It's my understanding that the actual percentages have varied over the years. Here's an actual sentence from Billboard's issue dated August 4, 1958, the introduction of the very first Hot 100 chart:
Weighted factors in the carefully designed formula include disk jockey plays, juke box activity and sales at the retail level.
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Hykker
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| Posted: 18 October 2009 at 3:14pm | IP Logged
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Keep in mind that prior to Mediabase/BDS monitoring, there was no way to accurately determine airplay. Prior to music scheduling programs like Selector, determining how many times a given song played in a week was pretty hit or miss. Maybe the big stations in the major markets kept accurate play logs, but I worked at a couple smaller-market stations that were Billboard reporters and we never kept playlists. I don't know what the PD reported when he gave the weekly reports.
Even in the 90s, when we reported weekly spins to the trades it was honor system. We called the trade papers & told them how many spins per title from the past week. Easy to fudge if we'd wanted to.
For that matter, sales figures were pretty suspect and subject to manipulation before Soundscan.
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 18 October 2009 at 7:43pm | IP Logged
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Hykker wrote:
Even in the 90s, when we reported weekly spins to the trades it was honor system. We called the trade papers & told them how many spins per title from the past week. Easy to fudge if we'd wanted to.
For that matter, sales figures were pretty suspect and subject to manipulation before Soundscan.
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Absolutely. I have a relative who is a former radio DJ and program director for a classic rock station that reported to Billboard. He laughed when he told me that they used to just write whatever the hell they wanted on their reporting lists.
I remember reading a Billboard article where one of their chart people, might have been Geoff Mayfield, said how shocked they were when they began doing the unpublished test charts with SoundScan. They were amazed at how far off the actual figures were from what the radio stations and record stores were reporting.
While the Hot 100 continued to be compiled from those airplay/sales reports for the first several months, the Hot 100 Singles Sales and Hot 100 Airplay charts, as published, were taken from SoundScan, so we can see just what the difference was during that time.
One example that comes to mind is Rod Stewart's "The Motown Song." It hit #10 on the Hot 100 pre-SoundScan system. But the Sounscan-based sales and airplay breakdown shows it peaked at #24 airplay and #36 sales. That song would NEVER have been top ten if Billboard had begun compiling the Hot 100 from SoundScan earlier.
The George Michael/Elton John duet of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" would likely never have hit #1 on the Hot 100, either... I think it peaked at #4 in both sales and airplay. And "I Wanna Sex You Up" probably would have been a #1 hit.
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aaronk
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| Posted: 19 October 2009 at 2:16pm | IP Logged
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In the mid-90s, my station would report to some of the trades. Our list of spins was based off the number of times a song was scheduled to play (in Selector). Nobody actually went back to reconcile the logs if a song was added or dropped.
It's funny that so many of us are diehard chart followers, yet those charts appear to be very inaccurate, especially in the days before Mediabase and SoundScan.
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torcan
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| Posted: 19 October 2009 at 2:27pm | IP Logged
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All of this maybe true (and if there are any other stories about this please post!!), but when you look at the singles that were certified gold or platinum, they were almost always songs that made it near the top of the charts; so maybe they weren't as accurate as they are today, but they couldn't have been that far off in EVERY case.
Even if the charts were somewhat inaccurate, they're still the best we've got, right! :)
Edited by torcan on 19 October 2009 at 2:28pm
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aaronk
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| Posted: 19 October 2009 at 2:49pm | IP Logged
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Very true! They are the best we've got, and they still give us a pretty good idea of what was popular at the time. I definitely refer to Billboard and R&R charts on a regular basis.
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fratboy96
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| Posted: 24 October 2009 at 2:59pm | IP Logged
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Brian W. wrote:
The George Michael/Elton John duet of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" would likely never have hit #1 on the Hot 100, either... I think it peaked at #4 in both sales and airplay. And "I Wanna Sex You Up" probably would have been a #1 hit.
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"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" was #1 in early 1992 (February?) under the new chart methodology. Even though it was ranked at #4 in airplay and sales, The three songs above it in airplay were below it in sales, and the three songs above it in sales were below it in airplay, so when all the points were tallied, DLTSGDOM came out on top. It was probably one of the tighter top 5 clusters in Billboard history.
Edited by fratboy96 on 24 October 2009 at 3:00pm
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 24 October 2009 at 6:52pm | IP Logged
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fratboy96 wrote:
| "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" was #1 in early 1992 (February?) under the new chart methodology. Even though it was ranked at #4 in airplay and sales, The three songs above it in airplay were below it in sales, and the three songs above it in sales were below it in airplay, so when all the points were tallied, DLTSGDOM came out on top. It was probably one of the tighter top 5 clusters in Billboard history. |
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Hmm, I guess you're right.
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Top 40 Music on Compact Disc : Chat Board
Topic: AT40 and "top selling singles"
