Rolling Stone to Launch Its Own Music Charts

[Caviar]

Rolling Stone will begin publishing its own music charts beginning next Monday, in a challenge to the longtime leader in the field, Billboard magazine.

The new “Rolling Stone Charts” will encompass the top 100 singles and the top 200 albums in the U.S.. the singles chart will be updated daily instead of weekly. The lists are also expected to incorporate more information on streaming and offer more transparency about how the rankings are derived. Rolling Stone, which is owned by Penske Media Corp. (which also owns Variety), is hoping that those innovations will help it muscle onto turf that Billboard has ruled for decades.

“PMC’s strategy is to constantly evolve our brands and products across media platforms,” PMC CEO Jay Penske said in a statement. “What’s imperative and exciting about our new Rolling Stone Charts is that it will present a transparent, granular and real-time quantification to accurately reflect listeners’ evolving interests and give insight into worldwide trends.”

PMC bought a majority stake in Rolling Stone two years ago, and became full owner of the property earlier this year.

The new charts will rely on data from analytics firm BuzzAngle Music, which was founded in 2013 and launched in 2016. PMC made a strategic investment in the company last year. Among other features, BuzzAngle tracks daily sales, streaming and airplay of songs, artists and albums.

Three other weekly charts that will launch Monday are the Rolling Stone Artist 500, ranking the most-streamed artists; the Rolling Stone Trending 25, a list of the fastest-moving songs based on a number of metrics; and the Rolling Stone Breakthrough 25, which will look at artists who have entered the charted for the first time.

News of the new charts was first reported by Vanity Fair on Tuesday.

www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2019/music/news/rolling-stone-launch-own-music-charts-challenge-billboard-1203207480/amp/


www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/rolling-stone-takes-aim-at-the-billboard-charts

[Caviar]

ROLLING STONE TAKES AIM AT THE COMPETITION WITH A BILLBOARD CHARTS KILLER

Ever since Penske Media Corporation took control of Rolling Stone two years ago, C.E.O. Jay Penske has been reviving and modernizing the 52-year-old publication—and bolstering his relatively under-the-radar media-mogul status in the process. Under Penske’s stewardship, the print edition was re-conceived as a monthly product, one that’s been featuring artists and influencers who feel more relevant to today’s readers than to their baby-boomer parents.Rolling Stone has also sought to put itself back on the map as a destination for political coverage, with half a dozen politics reporters, a Washington bureau chief, and Matt Taibbi back as a full-time staff writer. In January, Penske doubled down on his reboot by acquiring the 49 percent of Rolling Stone that he didn’t already own, after initially buying Jann Wenner’s majority stake for $50 million in 2017.

Now, Penske is aiming a cannon directly at one of Rolling Stone’s main rivals in music coverage. On Tuesday morning, P.M.C. is set to announce the creation of a competitor to the Billboard charts, which have been the go-to authority for ranking the popularity of songs and albums ever since their debut in 1940. Rolling Stone will now offer its own set of charts—including the top 100 songs and top 200 albums—which P.M.C. says will be more effective than Billboard’s in three key ways: they will be updated daily as opposed to weekly, they will go deeper on streaming data, and they will be completely transparent about their measurement methodologies.

Billboard gets its data through an exclusive deal with Nielsen SoundScan, but Rolling Stone will use Alpha Data, a three-year-old analytics start-up formerly known as BuzzAngle Music that has been building up clout within the industry since its 2016 launch. P.M.C. invested in BuzzAngle last year and is giving it a significant boost by pairing the service with Rolling Stone. “Rolling Stone is the most widely recognized brand in the music space,” Penske said by phone from Los Angeles on Monday, “and we think it should be used in other ways to help people discover music.” That said, P.M.C. is going up against the age-old gold standard, so it’s not like taking down the Billboard charts is a surefire bet. In either case, the news will be alluring for those in the music industry, who tend to get worked up over chart positions the way TV-news professionals do over ratings, or publishers over Web traffic. Might there be a dash of hysteria when there’s a different No.1 song or album on the the Billboard charts versus the Rolling Stone Charts? (They go public on May 13, and Alpha Data will continue to sell its analytics to record labels and other B2B operations.)

In addition to Rolling Stone, Penske has expanded his empire over the past few years by snatching up publications including Variety, Women’s Wear Daily, and Peter Brant’s Art Media Holdings. Last year, P.M.C. got a $200 million infusion from the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, which also has a joint-venture with Bloomberg. P.M.C. is profitable and has more cash than that on-hand, according to someone familiar with its finances, and is planning to make further acquisitions.

www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/05/rolling-stone-takes-aim-at-the-billboard-charts

[Au$tin]

I don't see this even coming close to battling the longtime industry standard, Billboard, or even this lasting more than a few years maximum, but it will be interesting to see. I'm particularly intrigued by their claim of more transparency. Are we going to get to see each song's and album's individual numbers per component? That could be really awesome.

But daily? That sounds like a lot of work for little payoff.

[Gary]

Rolling Stone has name recognition for sure but brand familiarity may hold this back

[fhas]

May 7, 2019 10:03:57 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

I don't see this even coming close to battling the longtime industry standard, Billboard, or even this lasting more than a few years maximum, but it will be interesting to see. I'm particularly intrigued by their claim of more transparency. Are we going to get to see each song's and album's individual numbers per component? That could be really awesome.

But daily? That sounds like a lot of work for little payoff.

I'm intrigued to see how they are gonna do this because YouTube needs two days to update.

[tanooki]

I hope this forces Billboard to publish more data lol

[gabe]

hoping they don't have awful recurrent rules

[erzo01]

^ I am in favour of having a comprehensive songs/singles/track chart, which I really hoped Billboard has managed to work on given how they've done it already for Billboard 200.

[born]

I'm actually excited about this. Let's see what happens!

PS: They could've started 10 days ago, just so we could see the difference in the performance of "ME!" (if any).

[jenglisbe]

I'm excited it forced Billboard to make some changes, but on the whole I'm not because if hypothetically this replaces Billboard, it f*cks up a lot of all-time stuff lol.

[areyoureadytojump]

Buzz Angle misses sales all the time. I'll stick with Billboard.

[shayonce]

so basically buzz angle being public.
hipe they release some numbers, notbjust positions.
and more clear rule on bundle mess.

[jodakyellow]

Some competition can only be good for the consumer and the industry, right? Yes, there's a cleanness to having one definitive/authoritative chart that I'm loathe to lose, but everyone's points about this forcing Billboard to improve and innovate are spot-on to me.

[Gary]

Billboard is clearly not too worried, they are carrying this story on their own site

[rockgolf]

I, for one, welcome our new music overlords.

[𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕓𝕤]

Okay well I’m excited regardless!!!

[Deleted]

So this means, that there can be 365 number one songs a year. It actually makes sense as in nowadays fastmusic world a week can be a very long period indeed and there have been songs missing number one even if those went there in the middle of the week etc

[jebsib]

We'll see if this becomes a cultural authority or goes the way of Your Hit Parade, Gavin, Cash Box, Record World, FMQB, Music Vendor and Radio & Records.

[Gary]

Buzzangle has been out for a few years. Other than new lists and adding the name Rolling Stone nothing here in my opinion to change the pop culture landscape

[ddlz]

So they're just going to use BuzzAngle's data? ??? Got my hopes up for nothing.

[jodakyellow]

Tomorrow’s the big day! Who’s excited?

[rimetm]

May 12, 2019 15:40:36 GMT -5 jodakyellow said:

Tomorrow’s the big day! Who’s excited?

You missed the news? They're pushing the public release back due to issues with data providers and UI quirks.

[fhas]

May 7, 2019 11:56:17 GMT -5 born said:

I'm actually excited about this. Let's see what happens!

PS: They could've started 10 days ago, just so we could see the difference in the performance of "ME!" (if any).

HDD uses BuzzAngle's data for its Song Revenue Chart.

BA counted 182.1k sales for ME!. Nielsen counted 193k.

[velaxti]

From what I know of Rolling Stone, they seemed to be biased in favor of rock music, so is that going to impact their chart in any way?

[Au$tin]

May 12, 2019 18:18:13 GMT -5 velaxti said:

From what I know of Rolling Stone, they seemed to be biased in favor of rock music, so is that going to impact their chart in any way?

No.

[jodakyellow]

May 12, 2019 15:49:07 GMT -5 rimetm said:

May 12, 2019 15:40:36 GMT -5 jodakyellow said:

Tomorrow’s the big day! Who’s excited?

You missed the news? They're pushing the public release back due to issues with data providers and UI quirks.

Yes, I did! Thanks

[85la]

In terms of a Hot 100-style chart, I think Billboard has finessed that chart so that it is now more accurate, comprehensive, and all-inclusive than it's ever been, however if there's something additional Rolling Stone can bring to the table, it would be transparency about its formula and providing more consumption data. Something like boxofficemojo.com, where they pretty much give you everything about all types of box office data for free, would be a dream for music, and if Rolling Stone can provide something even close to that, and/or if it pushes Billboard more towards that as well, I'd be all for it.

[jodakyellow]

May 13, 2019 21:34:29 GMT -5 85la said:

In terms of a Hot 100-style chart, I think Billboard has finessed that chart so that it is now more accurate, comprehensive, and all-inclusive than it's ever been, however if there's something additional Rolling Stone can bring to the table, it would be transparency about its formula and providing more consumption data. Something like boxofficemojo.com, where they pretty much give you everything about all types of box office data for free, would be a dream for music, and if Rolling Stone can provide something even close to that, and/or if it pushes Billboard more towards that as well, I'd be all for it.

Love this comparison. I was obsessed with BoxOfficeMojo as a kid until I discovered that music charts were a thing. If everything I love about BOM could be applied to music charts... Wow.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

ROLLING STONE'S YOUTUBE PROBLEM

Monday, May 20, 2019

Rolling Stone’s new chart hiccup continues, as Team Penske attempts to redefine the calculus of the Hot 100 and Top 200 Album charts. In addition to the serious roadblocks to acquiring the rights from certain DSPs, there was another problem; it revolved around the plan to have YouTube play a much more dominant role in those chart calculations.

YouTube continues to look for a way to jack the algo and yield massive power over rights holders as negotiations continue over those astonishingly low rates it’s been paying. Penske’s new project is about to encounter yet another setback, as BuzzAngle founder Jim Ledestri is taking his check for selling the company and getting the hell out. Minus Ledestri, there are big questions. Who’ll be the top player dealing with the data that’s so precious to the major music companies?

YouTube’s Lyor Cohen is desperately seeking influence over the nation’s music charts after getting shut down by Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine, for the umpteenth time, when it was decided that YouTube’s ad-supported streams would be given far less weight than paid streams. Cohen is said to have obtained a guarantee of a higher valuation for the Tube’s streams from RS, thanks to his relationship with Jann Wenner. Bottom line: This looks like a much bigger mess than it did when the initial chart launch fizzled out a week ago.

[kanimal]

May 20, 2019 11:43:29 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

ROLLING STONE'S YOUTUBE PROBLEM

Monday, May 20, 2019

Rolling Stone’s new chart hiccup continues, as Team Penske attempts to redefine the calculus of the Hot 100 and Top 200 Album charts. In addition to the serious roadblocks to acquiring the rights from certain DSPs, there was another problem; it revolved around the plan to have YouTube play a much more dominant role in those chart calculations.

The bold is strange to me.  Doesn't BuzzAngle already have access to this data?  If not, what was the point of buying BuzzAngle / making it the centerpiece of the chart?