YouTube Will Return to the Billboard Charts in 2027 After Billboard Narrows Its Streaming Ratio

The YouTube-Billboard standoff is over, and the fix came down to one number. YouTube’s global head of music, Lyor Cohen, said in a blog post on Monday (Nov. 9) that the company’s streaming data will return to Billboard’s charts in 2027, Billboard reports. The post followed Billboard’s own announcement earlier that day that it will narrow the ratio between paid and ad-supported streams to 1:1.5, down from 1:2.5.

Cohen added a two-line update to his original announcement from December 2025. It begins:

We are returning to the Billboard charts starting in 2027

Lyor Cohen, in a blog post update (Nov. 9), Pitchfork

He added that “Billboard’s new methodology better reflects how fans engage with music today across both subscription and ad-supported services.”

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The math changes on Jan. 16, with data from Jan. 1–7. From then on, each album consumption unit on the Billboard 200 equals 1,500 ad-supported streams or 1,000 paid-subscription on-demand official audio and video streams. Today it takes 2,500 ad-supported streams. An album unit also equals one album sale or 10 tracks sold, Billboard says. In plain terms, a free stream counts for more than it does now.

How it got here: YouTube pulled its data from Billboard’s charts beginning with the lists dated Jan. 31, after Billboard moved the ratio from 1:3 to 1:2.5. In December 2025, Cohen wrote that Billboard “uses an outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported,” which he said “ignores the massive engagement from fans who don’t have a subscription,” per Complex. YouTube had been part of the charts since 2013, when its data first fed the Hot 100, and joined the Billboard 200 in 2019. Billboard says it was the first chart to include the data.

Pitchfork points out that Cohen first hinted at 1:1, not 1:1.5, and notes it is unclear why YouTube accepted the narrower move. It has asked the company for comment. The practical effect is clear enough: stan accounts can once again count YouTube in their pushes up the Billboard 200.

HotNewHipHop reads the change as a win for artists who build their audiences on the platform, naming NBA YoungBoy, and says artists who typically dominate YouTube’s charts struggled to stay on the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 once the data left.

None of it shows up yet. The charts dated Nov. 14, which include Ella Langley’s record 27th week at No. 1 and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at No. 2 on the Hot 100, still run on the old math. Billboard’s new ratio takes effect with the chart dated Jan. 16, 2027, and YouTube says its data returns in 2027.