Do Internet Sales Affect The Chart Position?

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: May 15, 2099 Source: Fred Bronson's Billboard Chart Beat Submitted By: Shuilee@aol.com Q: Hi, Fred. I love your column and read it religiously on Fridays. The only thing I like more are Backstreet Boys! They're so good and will be around for a long time, I'm sure. Their new album comes out soon, and I saw on amazon.com that they have already pre-sold three million copies of their album. Here's my question: How do Internet sales such as this affect their chart position, if at all? If they do affect the chart position, couldn't this mean that they'd beat Garth Brooks' record debut of a million plus copies? What do you think? Thanks, Daniel bdaniel367@yahoo.com A: Dear Daniel, I had an immediate reaction to the figure of three million, but to answer your question about how Internet sales affect chart position, I once again turned to Geoff Mayfield, and he had the same reaction I did to the pre-sales figure. Here is Geoff's reply: "I have a feeling you may have misunderstood the item you read on amazon.com. To this point, orders by all U.S. music merchants and wholesalers, including the one that fulfills Amazon's orders, still fall shy of three million, so it is more than doubtful that Amazon alone had taken orders for that many. Most of the significant e-commerce music sellers, with the notable exception of amazon.com, do report to SoundScan, the company that calculates sales for our charts. Online retailers who do report include CDNow, Music Boulevard, Total E.com, CD Universe, and Soundstone Entertainment, plus Web sites operated by such chains as Best Buy and Trans World Entertainment (which includes Record Town, Camelot Music, Coconuts, Strawberries, and Spec's Music stores). At any rate, if Backstreet Boys do beat Garth Brooks' opening-week record -- and it's too early to say whether they will or not -- it won't be by a margin of two million copies." Hi Daniel, Fred here again. I also thought you would be interested to know that Billboard and Billboard Online have introduced an Internet Album Sales chart, so you can see which albums are most popular with people who purchase online. The Cranberries led the first list with their "Bury The Hatchet" album, and this week's No. 1 is the soundtrack to "Star Wars Episode I -- The Phantom Menace." Comment on this item. Recent Comments Submitted by: JimmiXzS oC8YU2 http://www.FyLitCl7Pf7kjQdDUOLQOuaxTXbj5iNG.com Submitted by: Bradley gMrUFm http://www.FyLitCl7Pf7kjQdDUOLQOuaxTXbj5iNG.com Submitted by: matzcrorkz sUNgII I think this is a real great blog.Really looking forward to read more. Cool. Comment on this item. Next Item: JAM! Music's Chart Talk Prev Item: BACKSTREET BOYS- *New trend* , *New style*