April 5, 2006
Billboard to chart ringtones
Music market tracker Billboard will start publishing a chart ranking the best-selling master ringtones, audio snippets derived from original studio recordings and used to customize mobile phones, writes CNN News.
The chart, dubbed Hot MasterTones, will be based on data compiled by Nielsen Mobile and represent the top 20 best-selling master ringtones for the week. Included in the chart will be the song title, artist, previous week's ranking and number of weeks on the chart.
The weekly publication began publishing a chart for monophonic and polyphonic ringtones -- song samples based on synthesized versions of recordings -- in 2004. But since then, master ringtones have become an increasingly important slice of recording industry sales, particularly in the United States.
The U.S. ringtone market is expected to exceed $600 million in sales this year, up from $500 million last year, according to BMI. Billboard estimates global ringtone sales racked up $4.4 billion in 2005, up from $3.7 billion the previous year. Much of that growth was due to sales of master ringtones, according to the magazine.
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