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I feel like there's a paradox to this conversation that people aren't acknowledging. "You can't discount the radio because that's a lot of people's only way of consuming music." Okay, that's fair, but then you turn around and say "the radio does play songs that people want (1/10)
to hear based on the streaming and sales data." Okay... so what's the point of counting the radio then? If the radio supposedly already plays music that a lot of people care about, then isn't that music already being counted on the charts through the sales and straming (2/10)
data that got it onto the radio in the first place? Counting the radio essentially functions as a "win more" mechanic where songs that are already doing well get an even bigger boost on the charts ehile making it much harder for unsupported songs to break in. It's not like (3/10)
disenfranchising those who only listen to the radio for their music because, by your own logic, the music they're listening to is being dictated by the tastes of those who ARE actively choosing to buy and stream songs. Look at the UK. They don't count radio on their charts (4/10)
and "One Kiss" was the biggest song of 2018 for them based on sales and streaming. I've talked to several people from the UK who told me One Kiss was INESCAPABLE on the radio in 2018. It's not like taking radio out of the equation magically erases the legitimacy of those (5/10)
listening to the radio. Shape of You and Uptown Funk still would have been the biggest songs of their respective years even if radio hadn't counted for the charts, and that wouldn't change the fact that they were also inescapable. Compare that to a song like Falling or (6/10)
Death Bed, which got huge streaming numbers for a while, but didn't get picked up by the radio until after the streaming had died. Those songs essentially got double the amount of points they should have because they got two separate bumps from both the streaming and the (7/10)
radio. And if you ask, "well what about songs that get big on streaming that never get picked up by the radio?" And to that I say, so what? The point I'm trying to make is, even if you tak radio out of the equation, most people who only listen to the radio would still be (8/10)
able to look at the Billboard charts and recognize most of the songs on there. Want proof? Look at the 2019 Rolling Stones year-end. That chart doesn't count radio, just sales and streaming, and the biggest songs on there still included huge radio hits like Sunflower, (9/10)
7 Rings, Without Me, Talk, Sucker and so on. Cutting radio out of the Hot 100 wouldn't cut out the listening experiences of anybody. All it would do is give more power to the people, and less to the bigwigs running the music industry behind the scenes. (10/10)
