Billboard's Hot 100

[Fastphilly]

Joel Whitburn has also researched Cashbox and Record World among dozens of local surveys, so his "dismissal" of manipulation over the course of decades of research would seem far more well grounded than the opinion of someone who was not involved in either the day-to-day chart operation, or even the research and analysis of the charts themselves. Fact is the majority of even Top 5 hits, are similarly ranked on all 3 trades, and that a fair consensus could be made regarding popularity.

No, as noted before, you are much more likely to get an objective yet educated opinion from someone who has worked with the chart folks for a decade (me) or five (David) than you are someone who has worked for one or more and has loyalties or grudges or an ongoing financial relationship (Joel).

The only consensus that could be made would be on wholesale orders for a record, not popularity. When you get to the top 3, the numbers should be big enough to eliminate statistical wobble. In other words, Billboard, Cash Box and Record World better have the top 3 in common, or someone's accounting procedures (and that's all we're talking about back then) were out of whack.

See a bigger variance in what the three have listed between #11 and #20 in a given week? That's where the sales numbers are getting smaller. Below #20? If all three magazines have 35 songs that week that each sold 150 copies, they have to rank them somehow. If they call each other, that's collusion. So they flip coins, throw darts, whatever. One record gets to be #20 that week. One gets to be #54. And the rest go in between.

Speaking of wholesale figures. I have heard that Casablanca Records would press an over abundance of copies and send them out which result to some of those records being certified gold even though not that amount of units were actually sold. Ever hear of that rumour or was it fact?

Fastphilly, it was fact and it was more than Casablanca. It was widespread. I know it's a long thread, but if you go back to my original post, I cover it there

Hi michael. Thanks. I will check out the first post. BTW, wasn't the singles chart compiled not only by sales but airplay as well? I would imagine R&R, Billboard, or some other outlet would contact medium and large market stations to gauge what records were given the highest rotations?

 

[michael hagerty]

Hi michael. Thanks. I will check out the first post. BTW, wasn't the singles chart compiled not only by sales but airplay as well? I would imagine R&R, Billboard, or some other outlet would contact medium and large market stations to gauge what records were given the highest rotations?

Again, you need to read the first post. Airplay wasn't folded into the Hot 100 until later in the game. For most if not all of the 70s and before the Hot 100 was wholesale copies shipped to distributors and stores, period.

The trades didn't contact stations, stations called the trades each week to report their new adds, what was dropped from the playlists and prime movers. Remember, though, airplay doesn't translate automatically to sales. Stations played stiffs...sometimes because the specific record had a sound the PD liked, or because the station had a promotion going on with that artist or label...or...payola.
So, in terms of whether real people were spending their own money to buy a record, airplay was often just more irrelevant data.

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

Actually, the tune-out data was extracted from raw PPM data and analyzed by two independent companies not affiliated with Arbitron.

As a matter of fact, if I had the time and patience I could derive the same data from the PPM data I have access too in 10 PPM markets... it's just an intensive job of synchronizing minute by minute PPM data with exact stopset times.

Sorry this is dragging the thread in an opposite direction but-
OK, but I think this quote still illustrates best what exactly the intentions are behind Arbitron and any research they would affiliate themselves with.

From Mark Ramsey -
"The most pressing matter for broadcasters is PPM sample size. And while broadcasters may be footing the bill for Arbitron they are not the audience that Arbitron has most been trying to please: That audience is your advertisers. And, like it or not, your advertisers do not have a problem with PPM sample size. In fact, it’s no oversimplification to say that advertisers (and I’m talking about agencies here, not the so-called “end clients”) don’t particularly care whether or not the ratings methodology is right or wrong. They care only that we have one and that we have ONE, not many."

 

[CTListener]

Joel Whitburn has also researched Cashbox and Record World among dozens of local surveys, so his "dismissal" of manipulation over the course of decades of research would seem far more well grounded than the opinion of someone who was not involved in either the day-to-day chart operation, or even the research and analysis of the charts themselves. Fact is the majority of even Top 5 hits, are similarly ranked on all 3 trades, and that a fair consensus could be made regarding popularity.

No, as noted before, you are much more likely to get an objective yet educated opinion from someone who has worked with the chart folks for a decade (me) or five (David) than you are someone who has worked for one or more and has loyalties or grudges or an ongoing financial relationship (Joel).

The only consensus that could be made would be on wholesale orders for a record, not popularity. When you get to the top 3, the numbers should be big enough to eliminate statistical wobble. In other words, Billboard, Cash Box and Record World better have the top 3 in common, or someone's accounting procedures (and that's all we're talking about back then) were out of whack.

See a bigger variance in what the three have listed between #11 and #20 in a given week? That's where the sales numbers are getting smaller. Below #20? If all three magazines have 35 songs that week that each sold 150 copies, they have to rank them somehow. If they call each other, that's collusion. So they flip coins, throw darts, whatever. One record gets to be #20 that week. One gets to be #54. And the rest go in between.

Speaking of wholesale figures. I have heard that Casablanca Records would press an over abundance of copies and send them out which result to some of those records being certified gold even though not that amount of units were actually sold. Ever hear of that rumour or was it fact?

So THAT'S why Kiss is having such a hard time getting into the Hall of Fame! Nobody actually bought their records! They weren't really popular! Who knew?

Not going to criticize the practice, though. I subscribe to Sirius XM despite the fact that Sirius has counted radios in unsold cars sitting in dealer lots as "subscribers" for years. Just more of the games corporate America plays.

 

[michael hagerty]

Joel Whitburn has also researched Cashbox and Record World among dozens of local surveys, so his "dismissal" of manipulation over the course of decades of research would seem far more well grounded than the opinion of someone who was not involved in either the day-to-day chart operation, or even the research and analysis of the charts themselves. Fact is the majority of even Top 5 hits, are similarly ranked on all 3 trades, and that a fair consensus could be made regarding popularity.

No, as noted before, you are much more likely to get an objective yet educated opinion from someone who has worked with the chart folks for a decade (me) or five (David) than you are someone who has worked for one or more and has loyalties or grudges or an ongoing financial relationship (Joel).

The only consensus that could be made would be on wholesale orders for a record, not popularity. When you get to the top 3, the numbers should be big enough to eliminate statistical wobble. In other words, Billboard, Cash Box and Record World better have the top 3 in common, or someone's accounting procedures (and that's all we're talking about back then) were out of whack.

See a bigger variance in what the three have listed between #11 and #20 in a given week? That's where the sales numbers are getting smaller. Below #20? If all three magazines have 35 songs that week that each sold 150 copies, they have to rank them somehow. If they call each other, that's collusion. So they flip coins, throw darts, whatever. One record gets to be #20 that week. One gets to be #54. And the rest go in between.

Speaking of wholesale figures. I have heard that Casablanca Records would press an over abundance of copies and send them out which result to some of those records being certified gold even though not that amount of units were actually sold. Ever hear of that rumour or was it fact?

So THAT'S why Kiss is having such a hard time getting into the Hall of Fame! Nobody actually bought their records! They weren't really popular! Who knew?

As I said in the reply, it wasn't just Casablanca. And sometimes, enough demand materialized for them to sell most of that over-ship at retail over the long haul. But even if the number of copies shipped and the number sold at retail were exactly the same, you get a much different chart number shipping platinum than you would spreading those sales out over 10 or 12 weeks wholesale, and retail would have been a different picture still.

 

[davideduardo]

OK, but I think this quote still illustrates best what exactly the intentions are behind Arbitron and any research they would affiliate themselves with.

Mark Ramsey is a pundit, albeit a good one, who uses his blog and newsletters to promote his research services for radio.

The end user of ratings has been, back to the Crossley surveys of the 30's, to provide a metric by which agencies can establish price and value for radio advertising.

Similarly, the ABC circulation figures provided by newspapers are also paid for by the medium but used by the ad agencies.

However, researchers can do any kind of study they want using the data. That does not make Arbitron any more affiliated with those analysts than eating a Snickers affiliates me with the Mars company that makes them.

Any researcher with legal access to the data can run any kind of tabulation or create any type of analysis they want. That does not mean that Arbitron in any way approves or disapproves of the result.

And, I disagree with Ramsey: the agency community does care about accuracy and they support, with money, the MRC. The MRC audits Arbitron methodology and gives or withholds accreditation, a thing of much value. Sample size is determined by the radio subscribers, and they will not pay for anything beyond the minimum necessary to keep the agencies happy.

The only intentions of Arbitron are to produce a usable survey and make a profit. There is no hidden agenda.

 

[RIN3GUY]

When you get to the top 3, the numbers should be big enough to eliminate statistical wobble. In other words, Billboard, Cash Box and Record World better have the top 3 in common, or someone's accounting procedures (and that's all we're talking about back then) were out of whack.

There were a few egregious cases of "Top 3" out of whack between BB & CB:

"Smoke From a Distant Fire" -- BB #9, CB #1
"Doesn't Somebody Want to be Wanted" -- BB #6, CB #1
"Sylvia's Mother" -- BB #5, CB #1
"Puttin' on the Ritz" -- BB #4, CB #1
"Cruisin'" -- BB #4, CB #1
"Don't Pull Your Love" -- BB #4, CB #1
"The Show Must Go On" - BB #4, CB #1
"Lonely Boy" -- BB #7, CB #3

In general, Cash Box chart peaks resonate with me considerably more than Billboard. However, in comparing over 1000 chart peaks in BB & CB, 20% of the time they match exactly. Another 60% of the time they are off by just one or two notches. Another 15% of the time they are off by as much as 3 to 5 positions. Then just 5% of the time there are inexplicable variations, most notably with songs written by Eric Carmen:

"I Wanna Be With You" -- BB #16, CB #10, RW #7
"Let's Pretend" -- BB #35, CB #18, RW #14
"Tonight" -- BB #69, CB #37
"Overnight Sensation" -- BB #18, CB #24
"She Did It" -- BB #23, CB #15
"Hey Deanie -- BB #7, CB #21

But discrepancies aside, I really don't believe that chart positions were so random as to be chosen by darts, coin tosses, etc. 98% of songs moved smoothly up and then down the charts typically without bizarre erratic jerks (e.g., from 8 to 11 back up to 6 then to 9, etc.) Also, songs would very often hold their peak positions for a second or sometimes third week, suggesting consistency of national survey methods by both BB and CB. I'm not saying there were never any glitches or manipulation, but all in all, my impression is that the charts were generally above-board, reflected the public's consensus of true music quality, and were as accurate as possible at least 80-90% of the time.

 

[michael hagerty]

But discrepancies aside, I really don't believe that chart positions were so random as to be chosen by darts, coin tosses, etc. 98% of songs moved smoothly up and then down the charts typically without bizarre erratic jerks (e.g., from 8 to 11 back up to 6 then to 9, etc.) Also, songs would very often hold their peak positions for a second or sometimes third week, suggesting consistency of national survey methods by both BB and CB. I'm not saying there were never any glitches or manipulation, but all in all, my impression is that the charts were generally above-board, reflected the public's consensus of true music quality, and were as accurate as possible at least 80-90% of the time.

The coin flip or darts example was a poor choice of words on my part because it could be taken literally.

The point remains though: As you go down the chart, quantities sold decrease, and since it's wholesale and orders were in multiples of 5 or 10, ties are inevitable. It then becomes up to the discretion of the magazine's chart staff how to rank records that moved the same number of copies wholesale.

Again, if you get to #20 and you have 35 records that sold the same number, the three magazines would come up with different choices as to what got #20, what got #54 and what went where inbetween.

 

[semoochie]

If it was really a tie, why didn't they just list it that way, for instance, "35", "35", "35", "38"?

 

[michael hagerty]

If it was really a tie, why didn't they just list it that way, for instance, "35", "35", "35", "38"?

That would be logical and honest. But I don't ever recall seeing a tie position (apart from a two-sided hit) on the Hot 100 or Top 200 album chart. Yet, given the realities of what they were tracking and the fact that orders were made in multiples of 5 or 10, ties were not only possible but mathematically likely in any given week.

 

[firepoint525]

Long thread so far, but definitely a good one!

Billboard has somehow managed to establish themselves as the "music bible" of the industry. It is only their books that I have seen for sale in book stores. Maybe Billboard's marketing and PR is better than everyone else's. How else can you explain it?

And it was only Billboard magazine that I ever saw at my college's library. Never saw any of the other trade papers there.

My favorite countdown has always been AT40. Casey Kasem is the best, and most knowledgeable announcer of them all.

Having said all that, I should add that my local top 40 radio station also carried the Radio & Records countdowns, sometimes simultaneously with also carrying AT40. They carried the Rick Dees countdown, as well as the ones hosted by John Leader and Dick Clark. I grew up down in west Tennessee, so I remember listening to Rick Dees on WHBQ in Memphis in the wake of his success with "Disco Duck." But his countdowns were, to me, simply unlistenable. He was just too stupid for my taste. I liked Casey Kasem playing it straight and giving me "just the facts." (I no longer live there, but I believe that that station still carries the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, as well as AT40, now hosted by Ryan Seacrest. I have heard a bit of the Seacrest countdown, but it is nothing like the AT40 that I grew up listening to.)

 

[cd637299]

I guess that editing for AT40 reruns played on oldies stations today would be difficult, but I am surprised that they still leave the salutes to the original affiliates in there.

cd

 

[CTListener]

I grew up down in west Tennessee, so I remember listening to Rick Dees on WHBQ in Memphis in the wake of his success with "Disco Duck." But his countdowns were, to me, simply unlistenable. He was just too stupid for my taste.

Not to take this too far off topic, but I was in east Arkansas for a few years in the late '70s, arriving just after Dees made his move to the big time and the West Coast. He was so over-the-top popular in Memphis that, for a time, he would actually record shows in LA for 'HBQ to air later in the week! 'HBQ had some good jocks, but "stupid" is a pretty apt term to describe the station's attitude. I found that its competitor, WMPS, had good personalities and a more intelligent, less frenetic, approach. Must say I was disappointed when 'MPS flipped to country within a year.

 

[firepoint525]

I grew up down in west Tennessee, so I remember listening to Rick Dees on WHBQ in Memphis in the wake of his success with "Disco Duck." But his countdowns were, to me, simply unlistenable. He was just too stupid for my taste.

Not to take this too far off topic, but I was in east Arkansas for a few years in the late '70s, arriving just after Dees made his move to the big time and the West Coast. He was so over-the-top popular in Memphis that, for a time, he would actually record shows in LA for 'HBQ to air later in the week! 'HBQ had some good jocks, but "stupid" is a pretty apt term to describe the station's attitude. I found that its competitor, WMPS, had good personalities and a more intelligent, less frenetic, approach. Must say I was disappointed when 'MPS flipped to country within a year.

Dees had also worked for 'MPS, but was fired from there for discussing "Disco Duck" on the air.

 

[michael hagerty]

Billboard has somehow managed to establish themselves as the "music bible" of the industry. It is only their books that I have seen for sale in book stores. Maybe Billboard's marketing and PR is better than everyone else's. How else can you explain it?

Again, it's important to remember, none of the trades charted actual retail sales to paying individuals until Soundscan. Record World and Cash Box made no attempt to market themselves beyond their traditional trade paper audience.

Billboard was unknown to the general public until its weekly exposure in AT40, and it was slow to capitalize on that. Eventually (after 1980, IIRC), Joel Whitburn began publishing mass-market chart books you could buy at mainstream book stores ( his Record Research books had always been mail order), Fred Bronson followed suit, and the Billboard branded greatest hits CDs were released.

It was based largely on the public's misunderstanding of what those numbers really represented. Billboard never said they were accurately charting actual retail sales, but they never corrected the impression, either...and furthered it by marketing products based on their charts to the public at large.

If Billboard (and Casey Kasem) had gone out of their way to say "The Hot 100 chart represents wholesale shipments of 45 RPM records to distributors and record stores and is not indicative of actual retail sales. Such sales may not occur, in which case the records are returned to the label. No re-accounting of the chart to reflect the actual sales of the record, which may be substantially less than the number shipped wholesale, will be done and no adjustment made to chart rankings as a result", on every AT40 broadcast, Whitburn or Bronson book or CD compilation, i doubt the Billboard chart would be anything the public would have paid much attention to.

 

[OldNumber7]

Long thread so far, but definitely a good one!

Billboard has somehow managed to establish themselves as the "music bible" of the industry. It is only their books that I have seen for sale in book stores. Maybe Billboard's marketing and PR is better than everyone else's. How else can you explain it?

Being first helps. but PR has a lot to do with it. On a related note, how did US News & World Report become the Bible of college rankings? Again, being first was a factor.
Which reminds me, I saw two stories in the news today about the corruptibility of ranking systems. (1) In Pennsylvania, Bucknell University fudged the average SAT scores of the incoming classes apparently to make the school appear more competitive than it is. (2) In Ohio, some school districts wrote low-performing students out of their enrollments and attendance figures so the academic average of the remaining students would represent the district's performance.
The lesson again and again -- if you rank things, they will come up with a way to fudge.

 

[firepoint525]

I guess that editing for AT40 reruns played on oldies stations today would be difficult, but I am surprised that they still leave the salutes to the original affiliates in there.

Personally, I like those, and I am glad that they leave them in. I have already heard mention of the station where I used to hear it while growing up, as well as some stations that I have become familiar with since moving here to the midstate.

If anything, I would drop the long-distance dedications and archives (from the four-hour programs) and any other countdown "extras" which slow the flow of the program. Apparently with these retro programs, they do not have as many commercial breaks, so they fill the time with countdown extra songs that have been added to the retro show, but were never part of the original program.

 

[oldies76]

My favorite countdown has always been AT40. Casey Kasem is the best, and most knowledgeable announcer of them all.

The Master of all countdowns, hands down!

 

[unitron]

When you get to the top 3, the numbers should be big enough to eliminate statistical wobble. In other words, Billboard, Cash Box and Record World better have the top 3 in common, or someone's accounting procedures (and that's all we're talking about back then) were out of whack.

There were a few egregious cases of "Top 3" out of whack between BB & CB:

"Smoke From a Distant Fire" -- BB #9, CB #1
"Doesn't Somebody Want to be Wanted" -- BB #6, CB #1
"Sylvia's Mother" -- BB #5, CB #1
"Puttin' on the Ritz" -- BB #4, CB #1
"Cruisin'" -- BB #4, CB #1
"Don't Pull Your Love" -- BB #4, CB #1
"The Show Must Go On" - BB #4, CB #1
"Lonely Boy" -- BB #7, CB #3

In general, Cash Box chart peaks resonate with me considerably more than Billboard. However, in comparing over 1000 chart peaks in BB & CB, 20% of the time they match exactly. Another 60% of the time they are off by just one or two notches. Another 15% of the time they are off by as much as 3 to 5 positions. Then just 5% of the time there are inexplicable variations, most notably with songs written by Eric Carmen:

"I Wanna Be With You" -- BB #16, CB #10, RW #7
"Let's Pretend" -- BB #35, CB #18, RW #14
"Tonight" -- BB #69, CB #37
"Overnight Sensation" -- BB #18, CB #24
"She Did It" -- BB #23, CB #15
"Hey Deanie -- BB #7, CB #21

But discrepancies aside, I really don't believe that chart positions were so random as to be chosen by darts, coin tosses, etc. 98% of songs moved smoothly up and then down the charts typically without bizarre erratic jerks (e.g., from 8 to 11 back up to 6 then to 9, etc.) Also, songs would very often hold their peak positions for a second or sometimes third week, suggesting consistency of national survey methods by both BB and CB. I'm not saying there were never any glitches or manipulation, but all in all, my impression is that the charts were generally above-board, reflected the public's consensus of true music quality, and were as accurate as possible at least 80-90% of the time.

So just like astro-physicists have to account for "dark matter", even if they can't point to it and say "it's right over there", there's some hidden Eric Carmen effect which has to somehow be quantified and factored in to get the true figures?

There's a doctoral dissertation in there for somebody.

 

[unitron]

It was also brought up by Michael in one of the past threads (way back) that it would be worse for a station to play a song people recognize but dislike, rather than to play one they don't recognize.

Just to be clear, neither is as good an option as playing a song with high recognition and low negatives.

For me, high recognition can be a negative.

(They're playing that song? Again?)