Billboard Announces New Chart Rules: No More Merch & Ticket Bundles

Billboard

Chris Eggertsen, writing for Billboard:

Billboard is changing the rules to its Billboard 200Hot 100 and other album and song charts. The announcement comes in an effort to rectify how sales are counted with respect to album bundles with merchandise and concert tickets, as well as instant digital sales attached to purchases for physical albums delivered at a later date. […]

Now, Billboard — in an acknowledgement that those measures have fallen short of the intended goal of accurately reflecting consumer intent — has decided to eliminate the practice of counting albums bundled with merchandise and concert tickets on its album and song charts altogether.