Recently, the world's most influential music rankings - the United States Billboard (Music Magazine Billboard) released a message: Starting from 2018, the calculation strategies of its THE HOT 100 and other charts will be adjusted, and paid music subscription services including Apple Music and Spotify will receive higher computing weights. Changes in
Billboard ranking calculation strategy and paid subscriptions have a greater impact on the results, which means that streaming media has been accepted by the mainstream music industry as an important market driver and source of income. As a weather vane for music around the world, this change reflects the increasing voice of streaming media such as Apple Music and Spotify in the music industry.
Billboard keeps pace with the times, Apple Music and Spotify's proudness have to make people reflect on the current situation of the domestic music market. Where is our own Billboard? Why has it been in a difficult state? Is there any possibility that can be solved quickly now? Perhaps looking back at Billboard's development history in recent years can be inspiring. The Billboard change after the birth of
streaming media
Billboard was originally released in the form of a magazine. After the first music list was produced in 1913, it was out of control. Currently, there are more than 200 different types and languages lists around the world, and they are updated weekly. After appeared from the streaming music platform, Billboard has made several major changes in the list setting and computing strategy, all reflecting the changes in the entire music industry.
On July 12, 2003, Billboard opened Hot Digital Tracks, marking this ancient list with a history of more than 100 years, and began to pay attention to the download path of digital music.
After less than two years, Billboard has opened Hot Digital Songs. You should know that Billboard tracks digital music so early, Spotify, the world's largest streaming music platform, has not been born at this time (launched in Stockholm, Sweden in 2008). The opening of Hot Digital Songs has also been recognized as the beginning of the "music download era".
On March 24, 2012, Billboard opened the On-Demand Songs list, namely the active streaming media list. At that time, streaming media platforms such as Rhapsody, MOG, Spotify (see the figure below for details), were included as data sources. The calculation of the list is based on the number of subscription listening and the number of bundled service downloads, marking that streaming paid listening has begun to be followed by Billboard.
Before Billboard increased the impact weight of paid subscriptions, paid subscriptions were just a trivial part of many measurement standards. Let’s take THE HOT 100, one of the most popular lists on Billboard, as an example. The rating weights were previously physical sales data - radio listening data - streaming listening data.
With the rise of streaming music platforms, the development of paid subscription habits, physical record sales and radio listening frequency decline, the "gold content" of streaming data is significantly higher than the other two data, and can better represent the choice of the market and audience. This is also the fundamental reason why Billboard adjusts its computing strategy.
It is not difficult to see from its development history that Billboard is not only a weather vane for the development of pop music, but also a reflector of changes in the music industry. The author believes that an authoritative evaluation system of industry like Billboard is the core performance and key driver of the development of positive cycle in the market:
core performance: The generation of charts needs to be based on a mature and transparent market environment, and a relatively open database;
key driver: At the creative level, the list is a concentrated reflection of audience preferences, which can guide the direction of music creation and inspire innovation; at the distribution level, the data source of the list is a dynamic expression of channel value, which can guide the allocation of resources for music distribution, encourage the cooperation and competition of multiple channels/platforms, and can even accelerate the maturity of emerging markets. For example, Billboard increases the calculation weight of paid subscriptions, which is a response to the market environment, and also stimulates paid subscriptions in the streaming media market to speed up.
It can be said that if there is a list, there is direction, there is a market, if there is a market, there is products, if there is products, there is investment, and if there is investment, there is talent... This is a positive market cycle.
China's own Billboard has been difficult for a long time.
turned around, and the maturity of the domestic music market is far from that of the United States (even Japan and South Korea), so that the Hip-hop, which has just lagged behind neighboring countries for 5-6 years, has caused many reasons behind it. The lack of an evaluation system like Billboard is one of them. The evaluation system is a manifestation of market competition. Without the follower and surpassing of competitors, and without the evaluation system exerting competitive pressure, it is difficult to optimize and improve the works.
China's music industry does not want to establish an evaluation system, and this "river and earth" has been in a turbulent situation.
Before the rise of streaming media, central media-led rankings emerged one after another, such as the global Chinese music chart (China Central Television and Shanghai Oriental Media Group), MusicRadio China TOP chart ( Central People's Radio ), Mengniu yogurt music trend chart (China Light Media leads), Global Pop Music Gold List (China Central Radio RT), Yinyue V chart (China Band cooperates with Billboard)...
But after entering the era of online music free in China, pirated versions are rampant. The Chinese music market is completely out of order, the offline physical record industry is almost collapsed, and there is no chain sales system to calculate physical record data; traditional music radio and television stations decline; although streaming media platforms are rising, they all act on their own after the copyright war in 2015, and there is no online playback database. The traditional evaluation system fades out one after another, and emerging evaluation systems are trying to establish, but "difficult labor" has always been with each other. After observation, we can summarize that there are three main categories of domestic lists:
"The Walking Dead" system: the strategy ten years ago, and still use
ten years later. Radio Music Voice launched the "Global Pop Music Gold List" selection in April 2011. The data source of this list gathers many well-known Chinese member radio stations, such as City FM City Voice, Taipei Voice Hit FM Network, Singapore 100.3, Malaysia MY FM, Los Angeles KAZN1300 Chinese radio, etc.
But compared to Billboard's practice of continuously weakening the weight of radio data and increasing the payment weight of streaming media, the "Global Pop Music Gold List" is outdated and more like a radio alliance ranking.
The decline in credibility can be seen from the participation of musicians. The first award ceremony also invited representative music figures from the time of Jay Chou , Jolin Tsai and other music representatives at that time to attend. However, the biggest guests in 2016 were the semi-outdated JJ Lin , as well as veteran talent contestants Wei Chen , He Jie , etc.
"Global Chinese Music Chart" founded by CCTV in March 2014 is positioned to create the most credible and authoritative music rankings in the country, promote Chinese originality, and lead the music trend of the times.
Judging from the Weibo voting promotion on October 16, 2017, the voting path of this list is very strange. The six voting channels announced, the top five voting people are not interested in wine, but are more about promoting their own clients and websites. The only cooperative streaming platform is Kuwo Music APP, which cannot represent the overall trend of the current music market. In addition to attracting some fans to support their idols, there is no credibility at all.
"Curvey Country Saving" school: There is not enough music data, MV click to
Billboard actually covets the Chinese market for a long time. Once Apple Music and Spotify can enter the Chinese market, the first one to rush out will be Billboard's Chinese list. Fortunately, our music market has not yet put AS double evil in it.
, which cannot obtain market data, Billboard chose to save the country in a curve. The first step to enter the Chinese market is to cooperate with Yinyue Taiwan with the "Yinyue V List" (Yinyue Taiwan focuses on high-definition music MV, established in 2009, currently has 40 million registered users and 800,000 MVs). However, from the data dimension of this list, it is difficult to build a list that can be called the Chinese version of Billboard on/off.The channel value of the cooperation between
Billboard and Yinyue TV is more obvious. You can see the Yinyue V list on the Billboard Radio China website, and you can also find the entrance to Billboard on Yinyue TV.
After this, Billboard also released a lot of news about entering China, but in addition to the established official Weibo and WeChat account, it has remained active and has entered the QQ Music HTML No. 3. The official list has been reprinted by various streaming media platforms, except for being familiar with it, I have not seen any other valuable actions.
"Good Time and Place" team: Although they have inherent advantages, they have to roll up their sleeves and cheer up
The domestic streaming media platform should be the team with the most "Good Time and Place" to establish an evaluation system. It has both data and platforms, but because they work independently and lack "harmony of people", it is difficult to summarize the output of the overall market. Despite this, none of the companies have given up on the list construction. The relatively complete ones are QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music and Xiami Music . Among them, NetEase Cloud Music has the most categories on the list (23), followed by QQ Music (22), and Xiami Music’s list category is only half of the first two. The settings of the domestic streaming media list are mainly divided into two major categories:
(I) The official self-evaluation version of the list ranked by streaming media using platform listening and subscription data. This type of list has the largest number of QQ music categories (13), and NetEase Cloud Music and Xiami Music have 8 and 7 respectively.
(II) Lists reprinted on the streaming media platform or launched in cooperation with other rankings. For example, the US Billboard, iTunes list, the UK list, Japan Oricon credibility list, South Korea Mnet list, etc.
Judging from the list information currently published by several platforms, the "standard" list mainly includes the hot song list, the new song list, and the original list. The data source is generally the listening data of the platform, and the data statistics are carried out in the unit of week. The list is updated at a faster frequency, generally with days and week at the latest as the unit time.
, but the three lists have the same "fatal point" - data source dimension is single (mostly the platform has its own listening data), the data calculation method is rigid (one is non-dynamic proportional calculation, and the other is that the difference between paid and free is not obvious, so refer to Billboard for comparison), and the market coverage, objectivity and flexibility are prominent.
From the list setting, QQ Music seems to have a strong desire to establish an industry evaluation system - the numerous official self-evaluation lists and the unified brand name "Peak List" are all practices to strengthen the brand framework and lay the foundation for later awards and awards.
, but currently the traditional rankings divided by region (Mainland/Hong Kong/Taiwan/European/US/Japan…) make the regional rankings based on closed platform data appear on the same page, with more authoritative and credible rankings such as Billboard and Ocicon, and their value needs to be evaluated.
NetEase Cloud Music is closer to user preferences and popular trends. For example, launching lists with obvious user tendencies such as the Appreciation List and Expert List, and lists of popular music types such as ACG, electronic music, hip-hop, etc., but the overall situation is relatively scattered. In addition, the music library data and user size are difficult to form a wide coverage. The setting of the
Xiami Music List is just right, basically bringing together the basic models of QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music. The number of users and music library data are also unavoidable pains. Xiami Music has also connected with Sina Weibo to jointly build the "Asian New Song Chart", but currently only set up real-time trends, weekly chart top 20, and monthly chart top 20, with narrow selection dimensions, and overall it is more like a fan support base.
From an operational perspective, QQ Music is currently the most efficient platform for establishing a Billboard-like industry evaluation system. It masters the most copyrighted music, user data, and upstream resources. but also needs to do at least 3 things in broadening the data dimension: refers to Billboard's streaming media listening (payment/free weight distinction) + physical sales + radio listening.
. Re-segment of listening data, and weights of paid subscriptions and free listening data are divided/dynamic calculations; . Supplementing physical record sales data, you can negotiate with the music copyright owner about the copyright of the record sales data cooperation rights, or connect with the physical record database of e-commerce platforms such as JD.com ; . Tencent Video opens music charting programs on its own, and the voting data is connected with QQ Music to replace radio data (considering that there are currently few authoritative TV and radio music programs in China, and self-built hot products are more market-oriented than from traditional radio stations, or you can also consider not adding radio data. In fact, the UK UK chart does not calculate radio data). In addition to the data, promotion is also the highlight. No matter how authoritative the list is, it has experienced the stage of going from obscurity to marketing. In addition to standard actions such as awards ceremony, authoritative lists such as Billboard and UK in the UK are all "media origins" and are good at using music reviews to guide the list to follow. ’s strong music review system is a channel to guide the music charts and an important means to guide taste.
The birth of art will always complement comments. Whether it is the birth of impressionism or the rise of the French New Wave, it is inseparable from the fuel of music critics and film critics. As a digitized and systematic expression of evaluation, the list should not appear separately from the content of comments. Since 2016, QQ Music, NetEase Cloud Music and Xiami Music have also increased the content ecosystem construction of streaming media platforms, but they are still very closely related to the list.
Some people may say that it may be unfair to market participants in the evaluation system. This problem does exist. However, in the current domestic market environment, if you want to efficiently build a Billboard, this road is the fastest, or at this time, an authoritative association in the music industry can coordinate the relationship between various streaming media, it can also be done (the author believes that except for a certain bureau or a certain department, the possibility is "0").
Finally, I want to use the words of Jonathan Serbin, President of Billboard Greater China, to emphasize the urgency of establishing an evaluation system - "China's music industry has huge potential. The key to the development of recent years is to require a list to clarify the progress of the music industry. And listeners also want to know the ranking of singers, and they also need such a list." If we don't roll up our sleeves and work hard, I'm afraid that the team that saves the country on the curve will have to think of a way.
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