Hot 100 Airplay (Radio Songs)

The Radio Songs chart, formerly Hot 100 Airplay, is a chart released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It measures radio airplay, and is one of the three component charts, along with the Hot 100 Singles Sales and the Hot Digital Songs charts, that determine the chart positions of singles on the Billboard Hot 100.

Chart data collection

The Radio Songs chart is a weekly chart that ranks the 100 songs with the most airplay points (frequently referred to as audience impressions, which is a calculation of the number of times a song is played and the audience size of the station playing the tune). A song can pick up an airplay point every time it is selected to be played on specific radio stations that Billboard monitors. Radio stations across the board are used, from Top 40 Mainstream (which plays a wide variety of music that is generally the most popular songs of the time) to more genre-specific radio stations such as urban radio.

Per Billboard (as of October 2005):<blockquote>"988 stations, top 40, adult contemporary, R&B/hip-hop, country, rock, gospel, Latin and Christian formats, are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This data is used to compile The Billboard Hot 100."</blockquote>

Strength of airplay

Singles usually enter the Radio Songs chart before any other, because in most cases, they hit the airwaves first before being made commercially available online or in stores. Prior to December 5, 1998, the...
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