Making the Charts
Methodology and Reporting
Policy of the Roots Music Report
Radio stations enter into the database the number of times
they have played an artist/album for the week and spins are update weekly into
the database. The database then tabulates all spins reported by stations that
week and places the artist/album in a chart order of most spins to least spins
received by all stations.
Each general genre chart has 50 placements. State/regional
charts have a varied number of placements due to the variance of the number of
albums reported with artist residing in any given state.
A new artist/album makes placement into our database by being
reported by at least 2 terrestrial radio stations or 3 internet radio stations
or a combination of the two in a one week period. Once this criterion is met
the artist/album is authorized to enter the database for tabulation.
This reporting rule was
implemented after the realization that we had stations with large spins counts
controlling the charts with an artist only being played on their lone
station. Our goal always is to keep the charts fair to artists receiving
airplay on several stations that report small spin counts and to stop any one
station monopolizing the charts.
For this reason some spins for the week may show a 0 count on
your playlist. This is directly the result of your station being the only one
to station is report the album. However, please keep reporting the
artist/album and as soon as another station does the same it will be
authorized into the database for tabulation.
We have added a few new music genres in the last several
months and in order to help them through the growth stage we are forgoing the
number of stations needed for reporting that genre. Upon reaching a sufficient
number of reporting stations for the new genre we will then switch them over
to the same requirements as our established genres.
In addition, we allow
syndicated stations to multiply each spin by the number of their syndications
(ex. 12 syndicated stations; 12 spins for each 1 spin); however, we do start
restricting the multiplications when syndications are to more than 20
stations.
Most of our syndicated
stations expressed their belief that they should have a larger spin count due
to the fact that they reach a larger audience and we certainly agree, however
we can't allow a station with an extremely large syndication rate to count all
of their stations.
For example we have some
syndicated programs that are broadcast on more than 600 radio stations however
we only allow them to report only 20 spins. This is due to the fact that, if a
syndicated show is on 400 stations and plays an album 3 times per show the
reported spins would be 1200, which would essentially make it that station’s
genre a one-show-chart. Therefore, we limit a syndicated stations spins while
still trying to allow for the fact that they do reach a larger listening
audience.
Our total spin counts are much
lower than most charts for this reason but we believe this allows for a more
accurate portrayal of any given artist’s popularity on stations around the
world.
We are doing our very best to
make our chart system balanced and fair. Whether it’s an artist that is played
by 10 stations with 10 or more syndicated shows each, for an artist that is
being played by 2 stations at 50 spins each, or if an artist that is played by
20 stations at 1 spin each. All Live365 stations will be allowed a maximum of
20 spins per album.
By requiring an album to be
played by at least 2 to 3 stations, before being authorized into the database,
as well as allowing some reporting balance for syndicated shows we are hoping
for a much more realistic chart that can still be fair to the little guys.
Our goal is to keep our charts honest and keep out the politics.
We thank all the stations that take the time and effort to
report their spins to us. You are vital to making the RMR charts work. We are
well aware that without them there would be no charts.
