In cruising the Billboard.com site I came across this in the ASK BILLBOARD section. Since we are big sales figures watchers lately with Musicology, thought this answered some questions.

QUICK 'HITS'

Keith,

Do you know the difference between the methodologies of the [sales] numbers gathered by Billboard versus the ones provided by Hits Daily Double? The reason I ask is that usually the numbers provided by Billboard are a little higher; however, I noted one difference where the Billboard numbers were actually lower. For example, with the debut of Janet's album "Damita Jo" (Virgin), Billboard reported 381,000 units sold; however, Hits Daily Double was 384,297. Did 4,000 people return their CDs? (Just kidding.)

Thanks in advance,

Karen

Karen,

Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's Director of Charts, responds:

"The numbers for the sales figures collected by Hits magazine and posted on its Web site are projections based on data from a limited number of the retailers who share point of sale information with our charts source, Nielsen SoundScan. Hits retail editor Mark Pearson generally does a commendable job of approximating the sales figures that drive Billboard's charts but there are discrepancies from time to time, particularly for titles that sell particularly well at department stores.

Nielsen SoundScan's sample is based on actual consumer purchases at a universe of more than 90% of the U.S. market, a wider sample than Hits or any other source can tout. Therefore, I am not just being a company guy when I say that in the event that a Hits number disagrees with ours, the Billboard/SoundScan total is likely the more accurate one."