Policy Revision Affects Latin Chart

An expansion of longstanding Billboard chart policy results in a change of rankings on Hot Latin Tracks and Tropical/Salsa Airplay from those on the charts posted May 19 by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (BDS).

Billboard does not count paid commercials containing part or all of a song toward a record's ranking on any chart. If a label purchases time to run a record on one or more stations, those spins—even if detected by BDS—are not counted as legitimate spins that affect the chart.

It does not matter if the song's spins are paid for as a time buy, as a consequence of a trade-out or other consideration for that station. In any of those cases, Billboard will consider these spins to be commercials. Among the key considerations that differentiate paid spins from legitimate plays are:

• paid spins include a canned opening or closing each time the record is played;

• with paid spins, the record is played more times than other records during a set period of time but receives no spins before or after this period.

If either of these conditions apply, Billboard will consider those plays as commercials, not legitimate spins.

This is an extension of the practice by which BDS eliminates detections registered by 60-second commercials. In cases where a paid spin extends beyond one minute, it will count as a play at BDS but will be removed from consideration for the Billboard charts. The policy revision applies to all radio charts that appear in Billboard.