Nielsen And Billboard Relaunch Top Canadian Albums Chart As Billboard Canadian Albums

Incorporate Streaming And Track Sales Into Ranking Beginning Oct. 26

New Chart is More Reflective of Today's Consumer Behavior

New York, Oct. 22, 2015 - Nielsen, the entertainment industrys premiere research and monitoring service, and Billboard, the leading global destination for charts, news, trends and innovations in music, announced a major change to the methodology of their weekly Canadian albums ranking to better measure an album's overall popularity and reflect changes in the way people consume music.

Re-launching Tuesday, Oct. 26 on Billboard.com, the newly formulated and newly named Billboard Canadian Albums chart will now include on-demand streaming activity and digital track sales, as measured by Nielsen, along with pure album sales, which had previously been the only metric used to compile album charts. These changes mark the most substantial update to the chart's methodology since 1996, when Nielsen's point-of-sale data was first used to compile the album sales chart. A pure sales-based album chart, Top Canadian Album Sales, will continue to exist. Nielsen's recent Music 360 Canada report shows that streaming is gaining substantially with Canadian consumers, with 71% of music fans now streaming music online, says Erin Crawford, GM of Music for Nielsen Entertainment. We're happy to bring streaming and track downloads into the new Billboard Canadian Albums chart. This newly formatted chart is a better measure of an album's popularity and a true reflection of how fans are consuming music today.

Moving beyond album sales to a more reflective album consumption model has been very well-received in the U.S., helping assure that our long-standing Billboard 200 albums chart remains the most accurate barometer of album popularity, says Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard VP of Charts & Data Development. I'm certain that the inclusion of streaming and track sales into the Billboard Canadian Albums chart will provide the same big-picture snapshot of true album engagement.

Formulated with feedback from key executives in the Canadian music industry, the Billboard Canadian Albums chart will include Track Equivalent Albums (TEA), which equate 10 digital track sales from an album to one equivalent album sale, as well Stream Equivalent Albums (SEA), which equate 1,500 song streams from an album to one equivalent album sale.

On-demand audio subscription services contributing to the new chart are Spotify, Apple Music, Rdio, Slacker, Google Play, Tidal and XboxMusic.

The Billboard Canadian Albums chart follows the successful launch of two other new charts, the Vinyl Albums chart and Canadian Emerging Artists chart, and the relaunch of the preeminent singles chart, Canadian Hot 100, to factor Canadian streaming data into the chart's ranking alongside digital download track sales, physical singles sales and radio airplay, all also tracked by Nielsen.

About Nielsen Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsens Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content-video, audio and text-is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industrys only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world's population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

About Billboard Billboard is the world's most influential music brand, built on the most complete and well-respected database of charts across all music genres. The Billboard charts define success in music. From the iconic Billboard magazine to Billboard.com which is the ultimate consumer-facing destination for millions of passionate music fans, to the industry's most elite conference series and influencer events including the Power 100 and Women in Music-the Billboard brand has unmatched authority among fans, artists and the industry alike. Billboard has a total social following numbering more than 14.6 million across platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Billboard magazine has scored major news-generating covers recently including Lady Gaga and Elton John, Selena Gomez, The Weeknd, Jimmy Fallon, Keith Richards and NWA.

Contacts Nielsen

Anna Loynes, aloynes@solters.com

Billboard

Kaitlyn Kurosky, Kaitlyn@high10media.com

LINK:	http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2015/nielsen-and-billboard-rel...
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