Frequently Asked Questions About Hot 100 Predictions

Here's a list of answers to common questions we get.

1. Airplay is wrong. On Kworb, it shows 134M, but you only have it at 97M.

While both are rolling 7-day audience impressions from radio airplay, Billboard has a different way to calculate impressions (via Nielsen/MRC Data). We need to multiply Kworb's numbers by roughly 0.72. Impressions vary between songs due to format panel tracking differences between the two (Mediabase vs Nielsen), and the multiplier can range between 0.65 to 0.80, with virtually all songs between 0.69 and 0.77, and a large majority between 0.71-0.73.

2. Will x artist be credited because of the remix?

Billboard's rules require that a version of a song make up the majority of its points to be credited. "Old Town Road" had many versions, but the Billy Ray remix was most popular, and so that's the one that gets credited on the Hot 100. However, it's possible Billboard may allow exceptions in certain cases.

3. How do you make predictions and are you accurate?

There's an incredible amount of nuance that goes into making predictions. For a detailed thread on how predictions are made, please refer to the following threads created by a team member: https://pulsemusic.proboards.com/thread/189542/billboard-chart-formula-point-calculations

For our predictions specifically, we average two team members' predictions (Lukas & smash) to smooth out flaws. This isn't perfect but almost always better than one set of predictions alone.

Our final predictions track record so far for the top 10 since we started averaging (position differences, where 0 is a perfect score):

April 11 chart: 0
April 18 chart: 0
April 25 chart: -2
May 2 chart: -4
May 9 chart: -2

4. Do you have access to the real data before the Hot 100 is revealed?

No, we only use publicly available data which is limited since it's not all of the data (e.g. Apple Music provides no streaming numbers, only positions).