YouTube is going back on the Billboard charts in 2027

YouTube's global head of music, Lyor Cohen, added a short note to the company's original December 2025 post. It says: "We are returning to the Billboard charts starting in 2027."

The note adds that Billboard's new method "better reflects how fans engage with music today across both subscription and ad-supported services."

That is the whole announcement. The real news is what Billboard did first: it changed the math on the same day.

Billboard ranks albums on the Billboard 200. To compare sales with streams, it uses the album consumption unit. One unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or a fixed number of streams of the album's songs.

A stream is counted differently depending on how you listen. Paid streams come from people who pay a monthly fee for music. Ad-supported streams come from free listening, where ads play between songs or videos.

Here is the change, in numbers:

• Before: 2,500 ad-supported streams or 1,000 paid streams equal one album unit.
• After: 1,500 ad-supported streams or 1,000 paid streams equal one album unit.
• The gap: it fell from 2.5 free streams per paid stream to 1.5.

By the numbers: a free stream is now worth about 67% more toward the chart than it was the day before. A paid stream is worth exactly what it was.

Billboard says the new formula starts with the Billboard 200 chart dated January 16, 2027, which reflects listening from January 1 to 7.

The standoff began in December 2025. Billboard announced it would give streaming more weight overall, so fewer streams would be needed to equal an album unit. At that time it went from 3,750 ad-supported streams per unit to 2,500, and from 1,250 paid streams to 1,000.

YouTube was not satisfied. Cohen wrote that Billboard "uses an outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported."

He argued that it "doesn't reflect how fans engage with music today and ignores the massive engagement from fans who don't have a subscription." YouTube said every play should count equally.

YouTube stopped sending its data to Billboard in January 2026 and told fans to look at its own weekly charts instead. Those charts show "what music is making waves on YouTube."

The big picture: YouTube runs a huge free, ad-supported music service, so the weighting hits it harder than it hits a subscription-only app.

Longer than you might think. YouTube views first counted toward Billboard's song charts, including the Hot 100, in 2013. Billboard was the first major chart to include them.

Billboard added YouTube data to the Billboard 200 in 2019. So the 2026 exit was the end of a partnership of more than a decade.

The early days were a little wild. Right after YouTube data arrived, the Baauer song "Harlem Shake" shot to the top of the Hot 100. It rode a wave of meme videos, and it showed how a viral trend on a video site could move a chart.

Billboard has kept paid streams worth more since a 2018 update. The idea is that a person who pays every month has made an active choice, and that paid listening brings in more money for artists and labels.

YouTube is not only a place to hear a song. It is also where fans watch music videos, live shows and lyric videos, and where short clips can send a track around the world.

With YouTube data back in the mix, that activity counts toward chart positions again. Independent artists and acts with large fan bases abroad could see the biggest difference, because a lot of their listening happens on free platforms.

Billboard gets something too. Without YouTube, its charts missed one of the biggest places people listen to music. A chart that leaves out a major platform is a bit like a race timer that skips one lane.

In real life Say a new artist has a music video that millions of people watch for free on YouTube, with ads, and almost no subscribers on paid apps. Under the old math, those views counted for less. Under the new math, they push the song higher up the chart.

No. Billboard did not give YouTube what it first asked for, which was equal weight for every play.

Paid streams still count for more. They just count for less of an advantage than before. It is a compromise: YouTube comes back, and Billboard keeps its view that not all streams are the same.

The catch: Billboard has said it weighs factors such as how much a stream earns, how people access it, and whether someone chose a song or just had it playing in the background. Those ideas have not gone away.

A Billboard ranking works a bit like a spot on a bestseller list. It does not carry quite the weight it once did, but it still shapes how artists, labels and radio talk about a hit.

Billboard started counting digital streams back in 2007. As more listening moved online, sales alone stopped telling the story of what people played.

Cohen made the same point in YouTube's December 2025 post. Streaming, he wrote, is "the primary way people experience music," making up 84% of US recorded music revenue.

When the December 2025 changes were announced, Billboard said they would take 33.3% fewer ad-supported streams and 20% fewer paid streams to equal an album unit. That reflected "an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors." The 2027 change goes a step further for free streams only.

Nothing changes on the charts today. YouTube data stays out until 2027, and Billboard's new formula begins with the January 16, 2027 chart.

After that, watch the top of the Hot 100 and the Billboard 200 for songs and albums that do well on video. Whether the changes move the number one spots a lot, or only a little, will become clear in the first charts of the year.

• November 9, 2026: YouTube and Billboard announce the plan.
• January 2027: the new formula takes effect and YouTube data returns.

• If you stream for free: your plays on YouTube will count for more toward the artists you love.
• If you pay for music: your plays still count for more per stream. That has not changed.
• If you follow the charts: expect some songs to climb that did well on video but would have lagged before.
• If you make music: your YouTube numbers feed into Billboard again from 2027, so they are worth watching.