Gloating

[koganbot]

Today's Billboard Korea K-pop Hot 100 chart:

1
Bar Bar Bar
Crayon Pop
1 2 6
First heard the song thanks to David Frazer posting it here. Odds are you first heard it from me.

"Bar Bar Bar," live on June 8:

Click to view

Not that I'm any kind of great prognosticator. This is me on June 27: "'Bar Bar Bar' enters the Gaon Chart at 143, three lower than

Comments

[koganbot]

Gaon has now fixed its site, and "Bar Bar Bar" falls from 3 to 5, about what I was expecting from seeing the Instiz charts over last week. My guess - and I emphasize it's a guess, since I don't know anything about Gaon's methodology - is that the difference here between Billboard and Gaon is that Billboard includes dance covers in its total. "Bar Bar Bar" is number 1 on Gaon's background music chart and number 2 on both its social chart and its streaming chart, though my guess is that dance covers don't get pulled-in there, either

[koganbot]

Beginning this week, Gaon has changed its weighting methodology to give more prominence to purchased downloads. The order of the aggregate chart is now almost identical to the downloads chart, and Crayon Pop doesn't seem to benefit from the fact that they're #2 on streaming and #1 on BGM, mobile, and karaoke (the social chart is a new thing and is currently not factored into the aggregate chart). This change came in response to the recent news that the Big 3 companies are planning to investigate digital manipulation of the charts, where companies allegedly employ multiple user accounts and IP addresses to stream certain songs 24 hours a day. While there's good evidence that this type of manipulation is happening, and it's good that the charts are taking steps to counter it, simply lowering the weight of streaming doesn't seem to be the right way to deal with it. Streaming is still the primary method people in Korea use to listen to music and is a better indicator of a song's popularity over time than downloads, which tend to be

[askbask]

Quoting user 3XS over at Popjustice:

"
Gaon just updated their website and the download figures are now COMPLETELY adjusted. Too much to post at once, but here's the main gist as far as I can tell right now:

-Aggregate numbers are the same. Total chart is unchanged.
-All chart positions remain unchanged
-The only change is in the download numbers since the end of June. Songs before the June 29 chart remain unaffected.

Differences in download sales of #1 singles since June 29 chart:

Aug 3: f(x) - "First Wisdom Tooth (Rum Pum Pum Pum)"
Original: 1,690,748 | Adjusted: 328,098

Jul 27: Ailee - "U & I"
Original: 649,440 | Adjusted: 155,458

Jul 20: Ailee - "U & I"
Original: 1,002,370 | Adjusted: 258,217

Jul 13: 2NE1 - "Falling In Love"
Original: 1,244,916 | Adjusted: 376,823

Jul 6: Dynamic Duo - "BAAAM"
Original: 1,029,922 | Adjusted: 363,272

Jun 29: Lee Seung Chul - "My Love"
Original: 603,774 | Adjusted: 229,155
"

[koganbot]

There are (at least) several things here I don't understand:

(1) Are the adjustments down or up?

(2) Does this means Gaon is not changing the weighting of downloads as opposed to streams but just getting a more accurate tally of downloads - and therefore the post above is incorrect and streams aren't being downgraded or downloads upgraded, the only change being a more accurate download number?

(3) Or is Gaon changing the weightings - so this isn't the actual number of downloads but a change in the weighted number assigned to downloads (so either a fractional multiplier lower than 1 was removed or a multiplier higher than 1 was added, or both

[askbask]

The post above has articles supporting it so I don't see any reason to not believe it. The adjustments for downloads are down - me and some others who have followed the Gaon wondered what happened when one week this spring numbers suddenly jumped from a relatively low average (lower than last year because prices have doubled for subscription services) to again going above a million per week for top 10 artists. Was it a sale? Did they start cocunting differently? But then it lasted for months. Now they're back to the general area they were before and adjusted the figures in that window. Some wondered if, due to presentation mistakes on Gaon's behalf, streaming or other digital consumption was actually counted in the download numbers for that period.

[koganbot]

So you're saying that my number 4 is right? ("(4) Or is this change in the download number in addition to and unrelated to Gaon's changing the relative weighting given to downloads as opposed to streams, which is also happening"?)

Just trying to make sure I understand.

[askbask]

I have no idea why any of the changes were made, why the downloads got big and then smaller again, or anything.