As reported yesterday, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s song “Stuck With U” is No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was unhappy about it though, and he went on social media and accused Grande, Bieber, and their management teams of buying the number one spot.
Now, Billboard is addressing the controversy head-on. “In the interest of transparency, Billboard wanted to clear up the Hot 100’s chart rules and tabulation process, the calculations that go into the determinations of its final rankings, and the stats accumulated by the two singles that marked this week’s highest debuts.”
Throughout the article, Billboard goes into detail about how audio and video streams are counted. They also discuss how streaming numbers are visible to the public versus how Billboard see and calculate them. For example, Billboard only counts YouTube views in the U.S.
Billboard brings receipts to the discussion and breaks down sales, last-minute number spikes for “Stuck With U,” and they address Tekashi’s claim that six credit cards were responsible for the majority of sales for Ariana and Justin song. At the end of their explanation, they summarize, saying, “Overall, ‘Stuck With U’ drew 28.1 million U.S. streams, 26.3 million in radio airplay audience, and 108,000 sold in the tracking week. ‘Gooba’ had 55.3 million U.S. streams, 172,000 in radio airplay audience, and 24,000 sold.” They lastly add, “Those sums resulted in the songs’ respective rankings on this week’s Hot 100.”
Read Billboard’s full article and explanation here.
