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HITS Daily Double
Throughout, HITS’ Top 50 Album sales chart continued to reflect what was really going on sales-wise, and now the Bible will follow our lead.

BILLBOARD WILL COUNT CATALOG IN TOP 200, LIKE HITS HAS BEEN DOING ALL ALONG

Move Will Be Made for Sales Week of Nov. 16-22

When Michael Jackson was the country’s best-selling artist after his untimely death, Billboard ignored him in its Top 200 sales chart.

When the Beatles reissues stormed retail on 9/9/09, Billboard refused to go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” relegating them to their Catalog chart.

Throughout, HITS’ Top 50 Album sales chart continued to reflect what was really going on sales-wise, and now the Bible will follow our lead.

Beginning with the issue dated Dec. 5 (representing the sales tracking week of 11/16-22), the Billboard 200 ranking will be based on SoundScan’s Comprehensive Albums chart, which means back catalog and reissues.

Wonder when they’ll start counting digital downloads on their singles chart. Oh, they do already?

“The events of 2009 and the continuing creativity in the repackaging of catalog titles, have led us to the conclude that the Billboard 200 would be best served presenting the true best sellers in the country, without any catalog-related rules or stipulations, to the media, pubic and our readers,” read the letter from the guys in charge.

The change will not effect the presentation of the charts or the calculations of the marketing reports in SoundScan, as the Top Current Albums, Top Comprehensive Albums and Top Catalog Albums charts remain unchanged. The move to a current/catalog hybrid chart will only affect the Billboard 200. All other current-based albums chart will follow BB’s longstanding catalog criteria.

In addition, the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart will be ranked on overall sales, with the R&B Core Store Panel no longer involved in calculations. There will also be a 15-position Folk Albums chart, to be managed by Gary Trust, which will run periodically in print and appear weekly on billboard.biz and billboard.com.

Nice to know someone’s listening over there.