Tag: billboard

Rising sales of digital tracks through music services such as the iTunes Music Store are raising questions about how such transactions should be measured on the Billboard charts. Sales of digital songs without a corresponding physical single are not included on The Billboard Hot 100. Individual download sales are tracked separately on the Hot Digital Tracks chart. “However, there is a growing sense that this must change,” Billboard Bulletin reports.

Slate’s Rob Walker reports on the new digital download chart in Billboard, which made its official debut this month in the trade journal. Walker is surprised by how small the numbers are — the No. 1 track, “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, reached its spot on the strength of about 1,500 paid downloads, while the No. 10 song only received about 500. “Billboard says that Apple, the most aggressive player in this market so far, is selling an average of 500,000 tracks a week.

Billboard is the latest to report on Apple’s digital music service, today posting an article that further describes the service. According to Billboard, the service is an “a la carte” download store that is built into iTunes. No subscription will be required for the service, and tracks will retail for an average of 99 cents. Once purchased, songs are automatically transferred to your iTunes library and synched to an iPod (if available). The content can also be burned to CD.