How Lady Gaga’s One Billion YouTube Views Changes the Music Industry
“When you look at Lady Gaga hitting a billion views, I think that’s a very positive wake-up call for the industry—that we need to think about the metrics of success differently,” says Joe Fleischer, CMO of media measurement firm Big Champagne. The Beverly Hills-based company recently developed Billboard rankings for the digital age. Called the Ultimate Chart, Big Champagne culls data from as many digital portals as possible to provide a more real-time portrait of an artist’s success.
“The right way to understand success is to include all of those points of contact that are meaningful into the charting environment,” explains Fleischer. “Just look at gold and platinum awards from the RIAA. When an artist like Disturbed reaches No. 1, are they now bigger than Taylor Swift? No. It means for just that one week they’ve sold more albums. It’s one component of success, but it does not give a consistent, undistorted view of the market.”
