Under Billboard’s current formula for the Billboard 200, one album unit equals 1,250 paid/subscription streams or 3,750 ad-supported streams – a 1:3 ratio.
From now on Billboard’s new methodology will tighten that ratio to 1:2.5, with one album unit now equalling 1,000 paid streams or 2,500 ad-supported streams.
This means paid streams will still be weighted more favourably than ad-supported plays, but by a smaller margin than before.
That high streaming number is because of the Christmas playlists on repeat mode. Brenda Lee’s album had the equivalent of nearly 55,000 units because of playlist streaming whilst physical was under 200. Bing Crosby was over 111k equivalent sales units but with just over 3,200 physical sales.
