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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 03 February 2021 at 2:53pm | IP Logged
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Don't remember if this has been posted here before, but there's a big article on just how the Billboard Hot 100 was
compiled in the issue dated September 13, 1969. Lots of great, detailed information!
You can read it here (starts on page 56)...
Billboard -
September 13, 1969
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AutumnAarilyn
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| Posted: 03 February 2021 at 11:14pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for posting. It was an interesting and not that
different from how the soul charts were tabulated.
I find myself reading random issues of Billboard online
that sometimes predate my birth. Furthermore and most
importantly I just bought a ton of books off of Joel and
a few that were out of print. Thanks for your hard work,
Paul.
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Hykker
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| Posted: 04 February 2021 at 7:18am | IP Logged
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Thanks for the link!! David Gleason's site is just
chock full of interesting historical info, and the old
Billboards, R&Rs and other trade publications are
fascinating to read.
Of course, the radio play data was nowhere near as
accurate back then as it is today with BDS monitoring.
I imagine most of the major market stations had
accurate playlists, but maybe not so much in smaller
(yet still significant) markets. A station I worked
at in the mid-ish 70s was a BB reporter, but we didn't
keep logs of what we played...yeah, we followed a
clock (ours had categories defined by colors), so you
could get a pretty good idea of how many times a song
got played, but it wasn't exact.
And the trades were at the mercy of how honest the
PD/MD was with reporting..."paper adds" (songs that
were reported, but not played, or maybe just
overnight) were rampant, as conversely songs were
played but not reported (sounds counter-intuitive, but
it happened).
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jebsib
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| Posted: 04 February 2021 at 9:26am | IP Logged
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Just fascinating - Far more detail than I have ever seen pre-1973 articles.
I'd still love to know when airplay was re-introduced to the Top 50.
The writer does not do a convincing job explaining why it was considered a
less-than-relevant component - except as a bottom 50 supplement to sales
data. Also amazed at how few markets were surveyed. Different times /
priorities, I guess.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 04 February 2021 at 10:10am | IP Logged
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jebsib wrote:
I'd still love to know when airplay was re-introduced to the Top 50.
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I'm not 100% certain, but I believe it happened for the week ending June 9, 1973. You can also
find that issue at the same site.
Edited by Paul Haney on 04 February 2021 at 10:12am
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jebsib
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| Posted: 04 February 2021 at 11:50am | IP Logged
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Thanks Paul - yeah, top 50 airplay was definitely part of that new 6/9/73
formula. I'd just be surprised if it had been absent that whole time.
BTW, does anyone recall in 1990 all those Hot 100 Spotlight columns where
the chart manager (Michael Ellis) was contemplating splitting the Hot 100 into
2 separate charts (airplay and sales) due to increasing disparities? Can you
just imagine!
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 05 February 2021 at 6:18am | IP Logged
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Thanks for posting that, Paul. Really fascinating. So at
the time the article was published, the difference
between the final data gathering day and the date on the
magazine issue was 12 days.
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 05 February 2021 at 3:58pm | IP Logged
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jebsib wrote:
The writer does not do a convincing job explaining why it was considered a less-than-relevant component - except as a bottom 50 supplement to sales data. |
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He doesn't, but it was explained when they started doing it, on Page 3 of the May 11, 1968 issue:
Quote:
BB SHEDS AIRPLAY FACTOR IN TOP HALF OF HOT 100
NEW YORK -The top half of Billboard's Hot 100 chart will no longer utilize the airplay ingredient it had been using in the past because of the number of Top 40 format stations which have changed the tabulating process of their printed playlists. This part of the chart is now being tabulated solely from dealers' sales reports from 21 markets across the country.
For the past several months, Top 40 stations have been leaning toward a tighter printed playlist. Many records on their way up have been dropped from station lists making room for stronger new product, or because the station management decided the sound of the disk was not what they desired for their audience, despite the fact that there were sales in the market.
The bottom half of the "Hot 100" and the "Bubbling" chart still involves the ingredients of dealer sales reports and the Top 40 stations' printed lists. In this area of the chart, the airplay reflection is required for the newer product to enable chart movement.
With this change, in the first 50 positions, the "star performer" rating in that area is now based upon a 25 per cent increase in dealer sales reports for the individual record from one week to the next. Similarly, disks in the bottom half of the "Hot 100" chart must reflect an across -the -board increase of 25 per cent in both dealer sales reports and Top 40 airplay combined. |
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Topic: Hot 100 Compiled In 1969
