YouTube will again provide its music streaming data to U.S. Billboard charts from 2027. It is resuming supply about a year after it halted the data in protest at a chart calculation method it said favored paid subscription services. The dispute eased after Billboard raised the share reflected from ad-supported free streaming.

TechCrunch reported on Nov. 9 that YouTube decided to accept Billboard's new chart methodology and resume supplying streaming data from 2027.

The dispute began in December last year. At the time, YouTube said Billboard was giving an excessively high weighting to music plays by paid subscribers and declared it would stop providing data. YouTube streaming data was excluded starting with the chart dated Jan. 31 this year.

Lyor Cohen (리요르 코언), YouTube's global head of music, criticised Billboard's methodology at the time, saying it did not properly reflect changing music consumption patterns. He said participation by users who listen to music for free while watching ads was being undervalued.

The key issue was the conversion ratio between paid and free streaming. Previously, 1,000 paid streams and 2,500 ad-supported streams were counted as the same album consumption unit.

Billboard decided to adjust that to 1,000 paid streams and 1,500 ad-supported streams. It keeps the principle of giving a higher weighting to paid plays, while expanding the influence of free users.

The new standard will apply starting with the Billboard 200 and genre album charts dated Jan. 16, 2027. The tally will cover streaming results from Jan. 1 to 7 that year.

YouTube's return is expected to raise the influence of users who consume music through video platforms such as music videos and lyric videos. That could expand opportunities for chart entry, especially for artists who rely heavily on free streaming.

Not all YouTube views will be reflected in chart performance as they are. Only streams that meet Billboard's counting requirements will be included, and actual ranking changes are expected to vary depending on the scale of use by each artist.

With YouTube and Billboard reaching an agreement, the importance of free streaming is again being highlighted in key indicators used to measure music consumption.