American entertainment media brand Billboard has announced that it is changing the rules to the Billboard 200, Hot 100, and other album and song charts by eliminating the practice of counting albums bundled with merchandise and concert tickets, as well as instant digital sales attached to purchases for physical albums delivered at a later date.
In their announcement, Billboard acknowledged that the current practice has “fallen short of the intended goal of accurately reflecting consumer intent.”.Under the new rules, all albums bundled with either merch or concert tickets must be promoted as an add-on to those purchases in order to be counted on the charts.
