Is Billboard still the Gold Standard after the Levitating Audit?
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READING TIME: 7 MINUTES
What the ‘fraud' Investigation means for the music, accounting and publishing industries going forwards:
This week readers were left in suspense to see who won the tight race between Levitating by Dua Lipa featuring DaBaby or Leave The Door Open by Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak to reach the Hot 100 top spot. It was revealed on 19th May that the latter star’s 8th Hot 100 topper resurged back to the top. Meanwhile the former (initially projected to hit #1 by various outsource analysts) gained a new peak position of #2 becoming her second from the album and of her career so far. Normally the article would be published on a Monday however, readers were left waiting for 2 days without any official announcement for why Billboard’s report was late. It was later discovered that the delay was due the Hot 100 formula being tweaked to reflect authenticity of direct-to-consumer purchases and eliminating any fraud consumption units.
Digital Sales
Other reputable sources such as Nielsen Soundscan reported that 23,000 sales for Levitating were made in the week. However, Billboard reduced these sales to 18,700 which contributed to less of 4 charting points. The reduction of 4,300 sales was the result of Billboard recognising and evicting a mass bulk purchase from the artist’s website, which implied by Billboard reflected an inorganic stan/label purchase as opposed to reflecting ’normal' individualistic consumer behaviour. As a result, Billboard and their partner MRC Data have recognised and in the future will exclude these anomalies which arise and will ensure this under their rigorous standard audits. It is assumed that the part of this 4,300 sales purchase also included the removal of sales from fake US addresses and sales from overseas VPNs - going forwards Billboard will also ensure sales count from recognised IP addresses to reflect US-only purchases. So any international fans buying with a US VPN will be filtered out and excluded from the tracking system, which help exclude swayed rabid fan bulk-buying purchases.
Radio
It was also discovered via Billboard’s article that radio audience adjustments on Broadcast Data Systems (Billboard’s provider) relative to Mediabase was one of the defining factors in Levitating not reaching the top spot. Without this upwards adjustment of radio, Levitating may have taken the top spot. Levitating’s tweaked audience impression (AI) for the week decreased, meanwhile Leaving the Door Open’s had increased. Apparently, going forward the radio proportion of the formula will have more weighting as the team assume more people will listen to music across various radio platforms once establishments begin to open across the USA whereas they and other platforms recognised radio weakening during the pandemic when people were stuck indoors. Billboard also claims that Levitating experienced an atypical resurgence at radio: it hit a peak of 55 million AI in February descending to 33 million AI in April to then a new rise of 60m AI 7 weeks later, which they deem as an unnatural rise. Billboard and Nielsen underwent further investigations to remove any artificial radio callouts or deemed payola schemes to inflate Levitating’s audience listenership. However, skeptics against this claim say Billboard's radio resurgence is due to Levitating succeeding on sales and streaming platforms as a result of the recent Grammy performance going viral on Tiktok, and this meant more people were also wanting to hear it on the radio too.
Setting a precedent
Artists known to manipulate the Hot 100 formula in 2020 through the digital sales metric
One might ponder why Billboard never implemented such rules in the past. Taking recent events into consideration, the music industry was suffering during 2020 when the pandemic changed consumer behaviour and radio, touring and physical store purchasing power had all decreased due to lockdown and social distancing procedures. So any manipulation tactics by radio, digital sales or streaming were allowed to permit the music industry, and indirectly the publishing industry, to survive on any purchases made and these exclusions would not yet be recognised as fraudulent activity. Billboard already enforced a rule where a maximum of 6 purchases to buy one single from one card would be counted towards the weekly tally, fuelled by the debacle between Stuck With U and Gooba. But labels and fans recognised that since digital sales are weaker than in the past, a small inflection in this part of the formula can have a huge effect on garnering overall chart points. As such fans from Nicki Minaj to Taylor Swift to BTS would bulk-buy multiple copies of the same song and its remixes on ITunes and the artist’s personal website, as well as have streaming parties, to ensure artificial inflation of the song’s otherwise organic rise (something Levitating was accused of). However, this meant that it became commonplace for debut #1 songs to arise in 2020/21, which has diluted the confidence in saying Billboard is the gold star standard to reflect weekly music popularity charts; so it looks like Billboard has again tweaked the formula and instilled confidence to the readership that their auditing processes will reflect fair consumer behaviour.
There are also discussions that the new rules will have a big impact on future releases, most notably BTS’ new single Butter. Allegations have arisen that worldwide fans have raised $50,000 in order to contribute to bulk-buying from the artist’s website in the US, which is something they already did in 2020 to get Dynamite, Savage Love (Remix) and Life Goes On to number one. Allegedly, enforcing this rule now than at a later date, such as on the debut week their new track is released prevents the risk of allegations of xenophobia and/or racism arising, which would also damage the magazine’s reputation.
Conclusion
One must consider the questions: Why all of this change for a niche magazine? Both artists are signed under the same head label. Does a number one give a subsidiary label bragging rights? Does it represent an additional token used to garner further investment into the label? At the end of the day Billboard must maintain a neutral stance, eliminate artificial consumer bias and continue being known for being an accurate popularity chart not a consumption chart. Since it's not the first time the magazine has committed errors, especially recently the week before when the positions of Miley Cyrus’ and Billie Eilish’s recent singles were incorrectly placed, Billboard knows they want to ensure the data they are publishing is being treated with utmost care. Whilst Levitating may not become a #1 single, its otherwise deducted sales may still be allowable under governing bodies such as the RIAA to help contribute towards the song’s certifications in the future.
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