Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" blasted to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 this week, ending a 16-week reign by the nation's song of the summer, "Despacito." But it's not exactly clear to most people how the country's hits — a source of both trendsetting and bragging rights across the music industry — are chosen.
How it's computed: According to Billboard, the Hot 100 chart comes together via a mix of three factors: song sales (35-45%), radio airplay (30-40%), and, crucially, online streaming (20-30%). Since 2014, Billboard has counted 1,500 plays of a song as one album sold, per the NYT.
Why it matters: Even though it makes up the smallest piece of the pie, Billboard's use of streaming has potentially the biggest impact on its charts — and the industry as a whole. It's perhaps most indicative of listeners' immediate tastes, which allows both zeitgeist-y artists like Taylor Swift to fly to the top spot and larger labels to attempt to game the system to their advantage.
Facebook is investing $1 billion in video content through 2018, The Wall Street Journal reports. Sources told the The New York Times two weeks ago that Facebook plans to spend $3 million per episode on a drama.
Why it matters: The investment matches the reported $1 billion content investment from rival Apple, as well as the billions invested by other major tech companies like Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon. It shows Facebook's commitment to being a video-first company, a mission that has been reiterated to investors by executives continuously during Facebook's earnings calls this year.
Facebook officially launched "Watch," it's video platform this week, with dozens of shows planned from digital media companies, newspaper companies and TV companies. It has also been competing for lucrative live-streaming contracts. It recently lost a major bid to livestream cricket in India to 21st Century Fox but has signed deals to stream MLB and ESL (e-sports) games.
Fox News confirmed today that it was parting ways with host Eric Bolling, per HuffPost. The network suspended him last month after HuffPost reported that he had sent unsolicited lewd photos to female coworkers.
It's yet another departure by a longtime host following sexual harassment allegations as Fox News continues to attempt to clean up the culture instituted by former chairman Roger Ailes.
The Fox News statement: "Eric Bolling and Fox have agreed to part ways amicably. We thank Eric for his ten years of service to our loyal viewers and wish him the best of luck."
Equifax stock plunged 14% this morning from its height yesterday after news broke that the credit reporting agency was the subject of a cybersecurity breach that might have compromised the personal information of 143 million Americans.
Adding fuel to the fire: Three major Equifax managers sold almost $2 million in the company's stock just days after they became aware of the incident, per Bloomberg.
