YouTube Changes How Views Are Counted For Music Videos

The streaming giant YouTube is drastically changing its system of the music chart. It is due to the recent discovery that many labels and artists have been applying growth hack to inflate the number of people watching their music videos.

The New Change

YouTube will no longer count  “advertising views” when calculating the music charts. From now on, they will rank the spots in the Music Charts based on organic plays. Recently, the practice of running musical videos like advertisements before other videos on the platforms has become a kind of standard practice in the industry. Mostly because if you keep on watching that "advertisement" for long enough, that will count as a view for the music video.

The Trick For Record-Breaking

This change will help to address those advertising campaigns launched to get a particular music video on the chart during the first twenty-four hours of being published. The blog post of YouTube acknowledges that many were using these stats as "definitive representation" of their instant cultural impact. YouTube wants to ensure the accuracy of those numbers.

This new change means that music videos eligible for record debuts must originate from organic sources. That includes search results, direct links, external sites which embed that video, plus, features of YouTube such as watch next, homepage, and Trending.

The system of music chart on YouTube has been facing some controversies in the last couple of months. Back in July, Badshah (an Indian rapper) broke the record of most views in twenty-four hours, beating BTS. However, people suspected views of the rapper was artificially inflated.

Later on, according to Bloomberg reported that the rapper bought advertisements which either promoted or embedded the video. These advertisements lead to a rapid increase in view count. YouTube has decided not to acknowledge this view number.

Only For The Music Charts

Similar tactics are also used by TV networks and movie studios in the fight for the record-breakings, but this change will not impact those. A spokesperson of the company said that this change focuses on aligning its Music Charts with standards of the industry.