Component charts have become an increasingly important way to measure the commercial success of individual songs.
The first record chart was founded in 1952 by Percy Dickins, who was working at New Musical Express at the time.
[2] In the US, Billboard introduced the Hot 100 on August 4, 1958, as the first chart to fully integrate sales and airplay data.
On November 30, 1991, Billboard introduced a new method of determining the Hot 100: "by a combination of actual radio airplay monitored electronically by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (BDS), additional playlists from small-market stations, and actual point-of-sale information provided by Nielsen SoundScan.
[3] In recent decades, traditional band-oriented music has declined on the charts, particularly in the US, as solo artists and electronic-based productions gained dominance.
Because of its value in promoting recording artists and releases, both directly to the consumer, and by encouraging exposure on radio, TV, and other media, chart positioning has long been a subject of scrutiny and controversy.
By the same metric, not all week-to-week sales increases result in a climber, if other releases improve by a sufficient amount to keep it from climbing.
The term highest climber is used to denote the release making the biggest leap upwards in the chart that week.