On Wednesday, YouTube announced that it will stop sharing streaming data with Billboard for its U.S. music charts starting next year, citing what they describe as an “outdated” system that weighs streams from paid subscribers more favorably than those from ad-supported users. Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s Global Head of Music, said the system “doesn’t reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription.” The move came after Billboard announced plans to calibrate its metrics to better balance the weight of paid streams versus ad-supported. For YouTube, which says it will continue to track its own streaming metrics, the move was too little too late.
In a statement, a representative for Billboard said they hoped YouTube would reconsider the move. “It is our hope that YouTube reconsiders and joins Billboard in recognizing the reach and popularity of artists on all music platforms and in celebrating their achievements through the power of fans and how they interact with the music that they love.”
The machinations behind Billboard’s chart calculations have been a perennial source of controversy in the music industry. Already this year, the brand has introduced other changes to its charts, as artists have done everything from bundling concert merch and re-releasing deluxe editions of albums in order to game the system. (Billboard and Rolling Stone are both owned by the same parent company, Penske Media Corporation.)
One major implication of Billboard’s latest change has to do with the status of hip-hop on the charts. Earlier this year, a torrent of discourse was set off as news broke that, for the first time in decades, there were no hip-hop songs in the Top 40 of the publication’s Hot 100 chart. In the wake of the industry-spanning rap feud of 2024, and with controversies around snitching and incarceration, many came to the conclusion that rap’s influence in popular culture was waning. Others suggested that the genre was simply returning to its more subcultural roots.
Billboard’s latest change, and YouTube’s subsequent action, point to a more structural issue. Perhaps rap isn’t any less popular than it’s been in the past, and it is in fact our units of measurement that are off. That sentiment started gaining traction this week, as commentators noted how the rule change would place more emphasis on pure streams, and predicted that this would in turn be a boon to rap’s place on the charts.
YouTube’s move, however, creates yet another wrinkle. Without data from arguably the biggest player in the world of streaming, Billboard’s charts run the risk of excluding the listening habits of young people, further skewing the charts away from hip-hop. YouTube remains a dominant streaming app among Gen Z and Gen Alpha especially, and a cursory look at the app’s music charts — Pooh Shiesty’s “FDO” music video, for instance, is among today’s top performers — shows how influential hip-hop remains among young listeners.
Commenting on YouTube’s decision to stop sharing its data, the independent musician Russ argued that the change would diminish the influence of the Billboard charts compared to other platforms and metrics. “Once YouTube isn’t counted, Billboard stops being THE scoreboard and becomes A scoreboard,” he wrote in a post on X.
That might ultimately not be such a bad thing. Younger listeners, and listeners who perhaps can’t afford a paid subscription to a streaming platform, are, in fact, still listeners. And beyond the bragging rights of a Number One record, having a more balanced metric for what music is actually moving the culture only makes things better for both artists and listeners.
