THE BIBLE’S BELATED CONVERSION TO CHRISTIAN MARKETSHARE

As I.B. Bad observed in his column posted on 1/16, Billboard has decided to count Christian sales in its marketshare tallies from the beginning of 2015 forward. The bible, of course, gets its calculations from corporate partner Nielsen SoundScan—but as it turns out, SoundScan has been compiling a marketshare report including Christian sales since way back in the summer of 2013, describing it as “the most complete view of industry market share available” in an email dated 9/13/13. If this statement was accurate, as it certainly appears to be, why on earth did the “industry bible” not adopt it immediately? Who dropped the ball—or, more mysteriously, did BB intentionally ignore the existence of the report, and if so, why? Further, why did the so-called music trade choose to add Christian sales to its report 16 months later?

SoundScan has been compiling a marketshare report including Christian sales since way back in the summer of 2013. Why on earth did the “industry bible” not adopt it immediately?

Our spies tell us BB had originally planned to make the change in week #50 of 2014 but opted instead to wait until the new year, largely because of the anticipated drama surrounding who would be #2. Editor in Chief Tony Gervino made what he called “an accommodation.” When the bible did announce that it was changing horses in last week’s issue, it hedged its bet by running a pair of final 2014 marketshare charts, as I.B. previously noted: the official one, which had Columbia at #2, and the plus-Christian, which boosted Capitol Music Group to second place. Christian sales make the marketshare pie bigger by around 15m units, but most of the majors will wind up with slightly smaller slices of this slightly larger pie.

It’ll be fascinating to watch this narrative play out over the next few months, as the believers and non-believers ponder these Commandments: “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” and “Thou shalt not steal another’s marketshare.”