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In 1928, "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. Other charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals. The first chart published by Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs", a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913. The current number-one song on the chart is " Last Night" by Morgan Wallen. As of the issue for the week ending on July 1, 2023, the Billboard Hot 100 has had 1,149 different number-one entries.
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The first number-one song of the Billboard Hot 100 was " Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson, on August 4, 1958.
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Previously, radio was tracked Monday–Sunday and, before July 2015, Wednesday–Tuesday. Radio airplay is readily available on a real-time basis, unlike sales figures and streaming, but is also tracked on the same Friday–Thursday cycle, effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021. This tracking period also applies to compiling online streaming data. It was initially Monday–Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991. The weekly tracking period for sales is currently Friday–Thursday, after being changed in July 2015. Ī new chart is compiled and released online to the public by Billboard website on Tuesdays but post-dated to the following Saturday, when the printed magazine first reaches newsstands. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), online streaming, and radio play in the U.S. The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine.
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