The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere. The results are published in Billboard magazine. Billboard biz, the online extension of the Billboard charts, provides additional weekly charts, [ 1 ] as well as year-end charts.
The charts can be ranked according to sales, streams, or airplay, and for main song charts such as the Hot song chart, all three data are used to compile the charts.
The weekly sales and streams charts have been monitored on a Friday-to-Thursday cycle since July ; previously it was on a Monday-to-Sunday cycle. Radio airplay song charts, however, follow the Monday-to-Sunday cycle previously Wednesday-to-Tuesday. Other early charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals in different cities. In , "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. In March , the "Songs with the Most Radio Plugs" chart debuted with data from a separate company.
In October , a review list, "The Week's Best Records", was retitled "The Billboard Record Buying Guide" by incorporating airplay and sheet music sales, which would eventually become the first trade survey of record popularity. In the July 27, , issue, the first "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" was published for the week ending July 20, [ 8 ] [ 9 ] with separate listings covering retail sales, sheet music sales, jukebox song selection and radio play.
Among the lists were the 10 songs of the "Best Selling Retail Records", which is the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with " I'll Never Smile Again " by Tommy Dorsey featuring vocals by Frank Sinatra its first number one. In November , a composite standing chart that combined retail sales, jukebox and disk jockeys play charts but counted individual record separately was created as "The Top " chart, with " Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing " by The Four Aces its first No.
