The Anatomy of a Hot 100 Race

The Anatomy of a Hot 100 Race
Accurate as of 2020 Chart Year

Whether you’re rooting for an underdog, want to secure a presumptive leader’s margin, or just are pushing an organic grower, the rules of engagement are a relative constant.

Report by
@Trot100News

In recent years, streaming has become the bedrock of Hot 100 points, so much so that it’s had controls put on it over the years.

Most recently, they split the metric into tiers.

In descending order of weight:

Tier 1: Premium on-demand audio and video streams

Tier 2: Free/ad-supported on-demand audio and official video streams

Tier 3: Online radio and Song-UGC video streams

Online radio are services like Pandora, specifically tiers in which you cannot select a song or playlist where you know the contents.

UGC stands for User Generated Content, and only clips that have a significant portion of the song (believed to be 30 seconds) are eligible.

This is the most influenceable metric as, even if you aren’t willing to make direct purchases, you can still contribute to Tier 2 and Tier 3 streams.

If you are in that situation and want to make the most impact:

-Lean towards uploads on official channels on YouTube of the song you prefer. If the music video has interludes or sound effects, there will usually be an audio-only upload to accommodate YouTube Music.

-If you *really* like a song, taking a trial on select on-demand services will have plays registered as Tier 1 because they comp labels as if you were a paying customer. You can only do this once, we do not endorse or give platform to any ways to circumvent this.

If you are a paying customer and want to maximize impact:

-Don’t use the repeat toggle. Enough people have tried to leave songs on loop while not engaging that both the streaming services and the data collection service will assume it’s fraudulent.

-If you’re on a platform with music videos and it has the video you like of the song you like, watch it there instead of on YouTube (unless of course you’re a paying customer of YouTube Music).

Radio has the second largest slice of the pie. In the midst of the pandemic, as of this writing, however, its share of the Hot 100 has grown to match and occasionally exceed streaming’s mainly owing to the latter’s decline.

It’s the least influenceable of the metrics directly because it’s based on audience impressions, not plays. Thus, stations in big markets hold more sway, and their playlists are far more rigid and less open to requests (or you’ll only be able to request from a small pool).

Sales is the smallest in terms of market share at the moment, but because of that, it has the strongest weight. Labels have taken notice of this in recent years and have leveraged this with bundle campaigns and occasionally digital discounts.

The metric is measured solely through copies, so if a song starts the week at $1.29 and dips to $0.69 (or spends the whole week at the latter price), it’ll affect the chart the same no matter when you purchased it.

The only advice we have for maximum impact is a synthesis with streaming.

If the platform you buy from is also the platform you’re a paid streaming customer on (e.g. Google Music, Apple Music), stream the song for the tracking week, then on the last tracking day, before midnight Eastern, purchase the song.

If a discount was applied during the week, you’ll benefit from it as opposed to buying sight unseen day 1, and the streams will still impact at Tier 1.

The only other notes are cautions in ways you may try to maximize impact that won’t work or worse:

-If you are not situated in the US, do not use a VPN or spoof an address for a bundle order. These copies/streams are eliminated in the vetting process and are fraudulent.

If you post evidence of having done the above, that could potentially be evidence of a crime in your jurisdiction, and if you bring it up in our circle, you will receive a block and a reporting.

-Sending digital copies to friends via the gifting function on storefronts does not add sales to the count because they are unsolicited.

-When a physical/digital bundle is available, bulk buying to some unknown extent will actually nullify your copies towards the total.

Basically, if something seems like an excessive waste of money, it likely will be.

We hope this thread helped lay out all the facets a music fan would want to know for chart purposes, regardless of which horse they have in any given race.