How Country Music Charts are Determined

The Billboard charts are the most widely recognized source for tracking country music popularity. Here’s a look at how they’re determined.

The Billboard Country Music Chart

Billboard is an American music magazine that publishes charts ranking the popularity of music recordings. The Billboard Country Music Chart is a record chart that ranks the top-performing country music songs in the United States. The chart is compiled by Billboard magazine.

How the Billboard Country Music Chart is Determined

The Billboard country music charts are determined by sales data, which is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, and radio airplay, which is measured by Nielsen BDS. Sales data includes digital downloads, CD single and album sales, while airplay includes both terrestrial and satellite radio.

The weighting of sales versus airplay varies from week to week; currently, airplay accounts for 60 percent of a song’s chart position, while sales make up the other 40 percent. In order for a song to be eligible for the country chart, it must be receiving significant airplay on country radio stations – at least five different stations must be playing it each week – and also be available for purchase as a digital download or on a physical album.

The Country Airplay Chart

The Country Airplay chart is a ranking of the most-played country music songs, calculated weekly by Billboard magazine. The chart ranks songs based on radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen BDS.

How the Country Airplay Chart is Determined

The Billboard Country Airplay chart is a weekly chart that ranks the top-performing country music songs in the United States. The chart is compiled by Billboard magazine based on radio airplay data from more than 1,000 stations that make up the Country Airplay panel.

The Country Airplay chart was introduced in January 1990 as a way to measure the success of country music on radio stations. The first No. 1 song on the chart was Brad Paisley’s “She’s Everything,” which spent two weeks at the top spot in February 2000.

To be eligible for the Country Airplay chart, a song must be released as a single and receive significant airplay on country radio stations. A song can also be eligible if it is part of an album that has been certified gold or platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The Country Airplay chart is based on data from Nielsen BDS, a tracking system that monitors radio airplay in more than 160 markets across the United States. The data is compiled and measured by Nielsen, and the results are published in Billboard magazine every week.

The Hot Country Songs Chart

The Hot Country Songs chart is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen BDS. The chart’s current number-one song is “One Big Country Song” by Jason Aldean.

How the Hot Country Songs Chart is Determined

The Hot Country Songs chart ranks the top-performing country music songs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. The chart is based on airplay data compiled byNielsen Broadcast Data Systems from approximately 2,000 radio stations. Radio stations that play country music are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The airplay information is transmitted to Nielsen BDS, which tabulates the data and produces charts which are utilized by Billboard for ranking purposes.

The Hot Country Songs chart tracks the number of radio spins per week for each song, with 100 spins equals one play or “audience impression.” BDS makesweekly reports of the total number of spins for each song to Billboard, where they are compiled and ranked using a points system. A song is awarded four points for each broadcast during the “daypart” (the time period during which most people listen to the radio), and two points for each airing during all other dayparts. In addition to audience impressions, thechart also factors in detections of radio station format changes and adds weight to recurrent plays of particularly popular songs.

The Digital Songs Chart

Billboard magazine began tracking digital download sales of country songs in 2005. The magazine updated its methodology for the digital downloads chart in February 2014. The Digital Songs chart ranks the best-selling digital songs in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by Billboard.

How the Digital Songs Chart is Determined

The Billboard digital songs chart is a ranking of the top-selling digital songs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. The chart was introduced on the magazine’s website on May 11, 2004, and is also available through various online music retailers such as iTunes and Amazon.com.

The digital songs chart is based on data from online music retailers that offer a la carte downloading of individual tracks. The sales data is compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and is based on a sample of retail outlets that report electronically to the company. The retail outlets included in the sample are primarily mass merchants and music stores, as well as premium download services. Sales from Internet radio services, such as Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music Unlimited, are not included in the digital songs chart because they are subscription-based rather than a la carte downloads.

The digital songs chart ranks songs based on their sales data, which is compiled on a weekly basis. The sales data includes both physical and digital sales of individual tracks. In order to be eligible for inclusion on the chart, a song must be commercially available for purchase as a standalone single or as part of an album or EP (extended play). Songs that are part of a subscription-based music service, such as Rhapsody or Yahoo! Music Unlimited, are not eligible for inclusion on the digital songs chart. In addition, songs that are only available for purchase through an online music retailer’s website (such as Amazon MP3) or through their mobile application (such as iTunes) are not eligible for inclusion on the chart.

The Radio Songs Chart

The Radio Songs chart is compiled by monitoring radio airplay of the leading country music stations in the United States. The data is then supplied toNielsen Broadcast Data Systems, which tabulates the results and publishes them on their website. The Radio Songs chart is one of the three major Country music charts, along with the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and the Mediabase Country Airplay chart.

How the Radio Songs Chart is Determined

The Radio Songs chart is compiled by Nielsen BDS, sales data from Nielsen SoundScan and streaming activity data from online music sources tracked by Nielsen BDS. The chart rankings are based on radio airplay detections as measured by Nielsen BDS. Songs are defined as current if they are newly-released titles, or songs receiving widespread airplay and/or sales activity for the first time.

A song will be removed from the Radio Songs chart if it fails to receive enough airplay or sales activity to sustain its position on the survey, if its rank drops below No. 25, or if a song spends more than 20 weeks on the chart and falls below No. 10. A song will also be removed from the Radio Songs chart if it is determined to be no longer “current.”