Soundscan - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

jamesanthony · 07-08-2004, 12:08 PM

I don't know if anyone who posts here is connected to the music industry but I always wondered about Soundscan, the computerized tracking system that is used for some of the industry's music charts. The Billboard top 200 switched to this system in the spring of 1991 and the difference was immediately noticeable. Under the old system albums rose up the chart gaining in momentum more gradually than they do now. Ocassionally a very hot album would move up quickly and it was extremely rare for some album to enter at #1. Now albums enter at #1 all the time, the way movies enter at #1 at the box office. Some albums enter at #1 or near the top and then drop off dramatically. I have heard that under the old system record labels would pay off record stores and chains to overreport sales, but can anyone confirm this as being true? The charts seem to indicate that this was a fact.

I heard the same thing about record companies paying off radio stations to overreport on how often songs were played so the Soundscan system is supposed to work against this sort of thing because everything is computerized. Yet songs stay on the charts a lot longer now than they did under the old system. Billboard has a rule that songs that have been on their charts for more than half a year that fall below the halfway mark automatically get removed from the list to give other songs a chance on the list. If they didn't do this some songs would be on some of those charts for 2 years or more.

Dean Winchester · 07-08-2004, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jamesanthony
I don't know if anyone who posts here is connected to the music industry but I always wondered about Soundscan, the computerized tracking system that is used for some of the industry's music charts. The Billboard top 200 switched to this system in the spring of 1991 and the difference was immediately noticeable. Under the old system albums rose up the chart gaining in momentum more gradually than they do now. Ocassionally a very hot album would move up quickly and it was extremely rare for some album to enter at #1. Now albums enter at #1 all the time, the way movies enter at #1 at the box office. Some albums enter at #1 or near the top and then drop off dramatically. I have heard that under the old system record labels would pay off record stores and chains to overreport sales, but can anyone confirm this as being true? The charts seem to indicate that this was a fact.

I heard the same thing about record companies paying off radio stations to overreport on how often songs were played so the Soundscan system is supposed to work against this sort of thing because everything is computerized. Yet songs stay on the charts a lot longer now than they did under the old system. Billboard has a rule that songs that have been on their charts for more than half a year that fall below the halfway mark automatically get removed from the list to give other songs a chance on the list. If they didn't do this some songs would be on some of those charts for 2 years or more.

well, I think one thing that happened with Soundscan is that it caused people to run out and buy the albums faster, so it'd chart higher, whereas by the old Billboard logic, it could take a month or two for an album to go #1, and only somebody like Michael Jackson evee could debut at #1. People spend too much time looking at the first week sales to judge whether it was a hit or flop instead of giving it about 2 months to see.

If you notice some of the early soundscan albums, actually DIDN'T debut at #1 and then moved up, I remember Paula Abdul's Spellbound debuted at #5 and moved up to #1, and Michael Bolton's Time Love & Tenderness debuted at #8 and moved up to #1 after 2 or 3 weeks. This is closer to how old-school Billboard was. But now it's "Janet's album is a bona-fide flop, she debuted at #2 this week"

jamesanthony · 07-09-2004, 11:55 AM

I'm wondering how the change in the system would cause people to run out and buy Cds quicker. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think the general population in this country cares that much about how the charts are compiled, they just like the records themselves.

vashti1999 · 07-09-2004, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jamesanthony
I'm wondering how the change in the system would cause people to run out and buy Cds quicker. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think the general population in this country cares that much about how the charts are compiled, they just like the records themselves.

They may not necessarily care about how charts are compiled but people are aware. I don't remember where I read it, but there was a story of thousands of teenage girls buying multiple copies of the last two NSYNC albums so that they'd have big first week numbers, thereby debuting at #1.

jamesanthony · 07-09-2004, 01:11 PM

Something else has changed in this Soundscan era. The music industry pours much more money now into promoting whole cds, pushing songs on radio and their videos on MTV, VHI etc and having the performers on the talk show circuit without making them commercially available as singles as often as they did before. Therefore when the record hits stores a hunger has been created for the CD and people (usually younger people ages 10-35) buy it en masse. Some CDs capitalize on niche marketing too, one cut will be heavily promoted at one radio format (urban for example) while another will be heavily promoted simultaneously at another format (say adult top 40) so as to sell as many units as possible as quickly as possible to recoup all the money spent on promotions.

Aside from Billboard, I like reading Radio and Record's lists. Even though they don't give much info on sales, they do show how many times songs get played in the different formats. In some formats there are songs that are 3 years old that have enough airplay points to be in the top 15 in their format. Radio is completely formatted now which I suppose has its advantages but to me makes things more boring and mind-numbing. I doubt there are even 5 radio stations left in this country that have an eclectic mix of musical styles. For example, Luther Vandross' songs Buy Me A Rose and Think About You were pushed to radio at the same time with the former being promoted at adult contemporary because it is actually a country song and the latter promoted at urban and urban a/c because it sounds more "black". Urban radio basically ignored Buy Me A Rose while adult contemporary and pop ignored "Think About You". In the old days there would be one single at a time sent out to various stations and in the record shops as well. And in the case of someone who sold the way Luther is selling now, if there would be 3 or 4 singles released in total so that if one didn't do well, another one would get a shot to do better.

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07-08-2004, 12:08 PM	#1
jamesanthony Senior Member Member Join Date: Mar 30, 2004 Posts: 2,116	Soundscan I don't know if anyone who posts here is connected to the music industry but I always wondered about Soundscan, the computerized tracking system that is used for some of the industry's music charts. The Billboard top 200 switched to this system in the spring of 1991 and the difference was immediately noticeable. Under the old system albums rose up the chart gaining in momentum more gradually than they do now. Ocassionally a very hot album would move up quickly and it was extremely rare for some album to enter at #1. Now albums enter at #1 all the time, the way movies enter at #1 at the box office. Some albums enter at #1 or near the top and then drop off dramatically. I have heard that under the old system record labels would pay off record stores and chains to overreport sales, but can anyone confirm this as being true? The charts seem to indicate that this was a fact. I heard the same thing about record companies paying off radio stations to overreport on how often songs were played so the Soundscan system is supposed to work against this sort of thing because everything is computerized. Yet songs stay on the charts a lot longer now than they did under the old system. Billboard has a rule that songs that have been on their charts for more than half a year that fall below the halfway mark automatically get removed from the list to give other songs a chance on the list. If they didn't do this some songs would be on some of those charts for 2 years or more.

07-09-2004, 11:55 AM	#3
jamesanthony Senior Member Member Join Date: Mar 30, 2004 Posts: 2,116	I'm wondering how the change in the system would cause people to run out and buy Cds quicker. That doesn't make sense to me. I don't think the general population in this country cares that much about how the charts are compiled, they just like the records themselves.

07-09-2004, 01:11 PM	#5
jamesanthony Senior Member Member Join Date: Mar 30, 2004 Posts: 2,116	Something else has changed in this Soundscan era. The music industry pours much more money now into promoting whole cds, pushing songs on radio and their videos on MTV, VHI etc and having the performers on the talk show circuit without making them commercially available as singles as often as they did before. Therefore when the record hits stores a hunger has been created for the CD and people (usually younger people ages 10-35) buy it en masse. Some CDs capitalize on niche marketing too, one cut will be heavily promoted at one radio format (urban for example) while another will be heavily promoted simultaneously at another format (say adult top 40) so as to sell as many units as possible as quickly as possible to recoup all the money spent on promotions. Aside from Billboard, I like reading Radio and Record's lists. Even though they don't give much info on sales, they do show how many times songs get played in the different formats. In some formats there are songs that are 3 years old that have enough airplay points to be in the top 15 in their format. Radio is completely formatted now which I suppose has its advantages but to me makes things more boring and mind-numbing. I doubt there are even 5 radio stations left in this country that have an eclectic mix of musical styles. For example, Luther Vandross' songs Buy Me A Rose and Think About You were pushed to radio at the same time with the former being promoted at adult contemporary because it is actually a country song and the latter promoted at urban and urban a/c because it sounds more "black". Urban radio basically ignored Buy Me A Rose while adult contemporary and pop ignored "Think About You". In the old days there would be one single at a time sent out to various stations and in the record shops as well. And in the case of someone who sold the way Luther is selling now, if there would be 3 or 4 singles released in total so that if one didn't do well, another one would get a shot to do better.