Billboard Hot 100

Radio airplay is readily available on a real-time basis, unlike sales figures and streaming, but is also tracked on the same Friday–Thursday cycle, effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021.

[6] The first chart published by Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs", a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913.

Listed were 10 songs of the national "Best Selling Retail Records", which was the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey its first number one.

[13] On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No.

[14][15] The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.

Although the advent of a singles music chart spawned chart historians and chart-watchers and greatly affected pop culture and produced countless bits of trivia, the main purpose of the Hot 100 is to aid those within the music industry: to reflect the popularity of the "product" (the singles, the albums, etc.)

Starting with the Hot 100 chart for the week ending November 29, 1969, this rule was altered; if both sides received significant airplay, they were listed together.

The inclusion of album cuts on the Hot 100 put the double-sided hit issues to rest permanently.

[18] During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number-one debut.

Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time: As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders to include airplay-only songs (or "album cuts") in the Hot 100, while the retail component was reduced from 40% to 25%.

[19] Extended play (EP) releases were listed by Billboard on the Hot 100 and in pre-Hot 100 charts (Top 100) until the mid-to-late 1960s.

With the growing popularity of albums, it was decided to move EPs (which typically contain four to six tracks) from the Hot 100 to the Billboard 200, where they are included to this day.

Since February 12, 2005, the Billboard Hot 100 tracks paid digital downloads from such internet services as iTunes, Musicmatch, and Rhapsody.

In recent years, several songs have been able to achieve 80-to-90 position jumps in a single week as their digital components were made available at online music stores.

In the issue dated August 11, 2007, Billboard began incorporating weekly data from streaming media and on-demand services into the Hot 100.

The first two major companies to provide their statistics to Nielsen BDS on a weekly basis were AOL Music and Yahoo!

[21] Its data was then incorporated into the equation that compiles the Hot 100, and this was expanded to a broader Streaming Songs chart in January 2013.

Under normal circumstances, airplay points from a song's album version, "radio" mix or dance music remix, etc.

Originally entering the Hot 100 in its album version, a "remix" was issued in the midst of its chart run that featured rapper Ja Rule.

[25] Exceptions are made to re-releases and sudden resurgence in popularity of tracks that have taken a very long time to gain mainstream success.

These rare cases are handled on a case-by-case basis and ultimately determined by Billboard's chart managers and staff.

This altered calendar allows for Billboard to calculate year-end charts and release them in time for its final print issue in the last week of December.

The Hot 100 served for many years as the data source for the weekly radio countdown show American Top 40.

An artist or band's ability to have hits in the Hot 100 across multiple decades is recognized as a sign of longevity and being able to adapt to changing musical styles.

A new chart, the Pop 100, was created by Billboard in February 2005 to answer criticism that the Hot 100 at the time was too dominated by hip hop and R&B.