Billboard Hot 100


The Billboard Hot 100, also known as simply the Hot 100, is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales, online streaming, and radio airplay in the U.S.
A new chart is compiled and released online to the public by Billboards website on Tuesdays but post-dated to the following Saturday, when the printed magazine first reaches newsstands. Since July 2015, the weekly tracking period for sales has been Friday–Thursday. It was initially Monday–Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991. This tracking period also applies to the compilation of online streaming data. Radio airplay is readily available in real time, unlike sales figures and streaming, but is also tracked on the same Friday–Thursday cycle, effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021. Previously, radio was tracked Monday–Sunday and, before July 2015, Wednesday–Tuesday.
The first number-one song of the Billboard Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson, on August 4, 1958. As of the issue for the week ending on January 31, 2026, the Billboard Hot 100 has had 1,185 different number-one entries. The current number-one song on the chart is "I Just Might" by Bruno Mars.

History

The first chart published by Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs", a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913. Other charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals. In 1928, "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published "Ten Best Records for Week Ending", which listed the 10 top selling records of three leading record companies, as reported by the companies themselves. In October 1938, 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. This led to the full-page "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" for the week ending July 20, 1940, and published in the July 27 issue, with lists covering jukebox play, retail sales, sheet music sales, and radio play. Listed were 10 songs of the national "Best Selling Retail Records", which was the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey its first number one.
Starting on March 24, 1945, Billboards lead popularity chart was the Honor Roll of Hits. This chart ranked the most popular songs regardless of performer based on record and sheet sales, disk jockey, and jukebox performances as determined by Billboards weekly nationwide survey. At the start of the rock era in 1955, there were three charts that measured songs by individual metrics:
  • Best Sellers in Stores was the best seller chart first established in July 1940. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country.
  • Most Played by Jockeys was Billboards original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio DJs and radio stations.
  • Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes across the United States. This was one of the main outlets of measuring song popularity with the younger generation of music listeners, as many radio stations resisted adding rock and roll music to their playlists for many years.
Billboards primary chart among these was the Best Sellers in Stores chart, and the magazine refers to that when discussing a song's performance before the creation of the Hot 100. In its issue of November 12, 1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time. The Top 100 combined all aspects of a single's performance, based on a point system that typically gave sales more weight than radio airplay. The first No. 1 in that chart was "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" by The Four Aces. The Best Sellers in Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart.
On June 17, 1957, Billboard discontinued the Most Played in Jukeboxes chart, as the popularity of jukeboxes waned and radio stations incorporated more and more rock-oriented music into their playlists. The week of July 28, 1958, had the final Most Played by Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which had Perez Prado's instrumental version of "Patricia" ascending to the top.
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No. 1. The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.
The Hot 100 was created by journalists Tom Noonan, Paul Ackerman, and Seymour Stein; Stein did not recall who chose the name.
The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a song's popularity is measured in the United States. The Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan and streaming activity provided by online music sources.
There are several component charts that contribute to the overall calculation of the Hot 100. They are:
  • Radio Songs: approximately 1,000 stations, "composed of adult contemporary, R&B, hip hop, country, rock, gospel, Latin and Christian formats, digitally monitored twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with Arbitron listener data."
  • Digital Song Sales: Digital sales are tracked by Nielsen SoundScan and are included as part of a title's sales points.
  • Streaming Songs: a collaboration between Billboard, Nielsen SoundScan and National Association of Recording Merchandisers which measures the top streamed radio songs, on-demand songs and videos on leading online music services.
  • Hot Singles Sales : physical single sales were tracked by Nielsen SoundScan.
PeriodHot Singles Sales
Radio Songs
Digital Song Sales
Streaming Songs
1984–2005
2005–2013
2013–2017
2017–present

Compilation

The tracking week for sales, streaming and airplay begins on Friday and ends on Thursday. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesday. Each chart is post-dated with the "week-ending" issue date four days after the charts are refreshed online. For example:
  • Friday, January 1 – tracking-week begins for sales, streaming and airplay
  • Thursday, January 7 – tracking-week ends for sales, streaming and airplay
  • Tuesday, January 12 – new chart released, with issue post-dated Saturday, January 16

    Policy changes

The methods and policies by which this data is obtained and compiled have changed many times throughout the chart's history.
Although the advent of a singles music chart spawned chart historians and chart-watchers and greatly affected pop culture and produced countless bits of trivia, the main purpose of the Hot 100 is to aid those within the music industry: to reflect the popularity of the "product" and to track the trends of the buying public. Billboard has changed its methodology and policies to give the most precise and accurate reflection of what is popular. A very basic example of this would be the ratio given to sales and airplay. During the Hot 100's early history, singles were the leading way by which people bought music. At times, when singles sales were robust, more weight was given to a song's retail points than to its radio airplay.

Double-sided singles

Billboard has also changed its Hot 100 policy regarding "two-sided singles" several times. The pre-Hot 100 chart "Best Sellers in Stores" listed popular A- and-B-sides together, with the side that was played most often listed first. One of these was Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" / "Hound Dog". During the Presley single's chart run, top billing was switched back and forth between the two sides several times. But on the concurrent "Most Played in Juke Boxes", "Most Played by Jockeys" and the "Top 100", the two songs were listed separately, as was true of all songs. With the initiation of the Hot 100 in 1958, A- and-B-sides charted separately, as they had on the former Top 100.
Starting with the Hot 100 chart for the week ending November 29, 1969, this rule was altered; if both sides received significant airplay, they were listed together. This started to become a moot point by 1972, as most major record labels solidified a trend they had started in the 1960s by putting the same song on both sides of the singles provided to radio.
More complex issues began to arise as the typical A- and-B-side format of singles gave way to 12 inch singles and maxi-singles, many of which contained more than one B-side. Further problems arose when, in several cases, a B-side would eventually overtake the A-side in popularity, thus prompting record labels to release a new single, featuring the former B-side as the A-side, along with a "new" B-side.
The inclusion of album cuts on the Hot 100 put the double-sided hit issues to rest permanently.

Album cuts

As many Hot 100 chart policies have been modified over the years, one rule remained constant for over four decades: songs were not eligible to enter the Hot 100 unless they were available to purchase as a single. This was discontinued on December 5, 1998, when the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart. During the 1990s, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without ever releasing them as singles. It was claimed by major record labels that singles were cannibalizing album sales, so they were slowly phased out. During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number-one debut. In many cases, a label would delete a single from its catalog after only one week, thus allowing the song to enter the Hot 100, make a high debut and then slowly decline in position as the one-time production of the retail single sold out.
It was during this period that several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100, or charted well after their airplay had declined. During the period that they were not released as singles, the songs were not eligible to chart. Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time:
  • 1995 The Rembrandts: "I'll Be There for You"
  • 1996 No Doubt: "Don't Speak"
  • 1997 Sugar Ray featuring Super Cat: "Fly"
  • 1997 Will Smith: "Men in Black"
  • 1997 The Cardigans: "Lovefool"
  • 1998 Natalie Imbruglia: "Torn"
  • 1998 Goo Goo Dolls: "Iris"
As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders to include airplay-only songs in the Hot 100, while the retail component was reduced from 40% to 25%.