General Question

rpm_pseud0name's avatar

Are studio audience album/book give-aways considered, when calculating Billboard/Bestseller stats?

Asked by rpm_pseud0name (8208points) May 27th, 2010

Almost every studio audience talk show has give-aways. A studio audience can contain as many as 500 or so people. When the host gives the audience the album or book from the shows guest, are those 500 or so copies taken into consideration when calculating the Billboard top 100 sales & NYT bestseller list? If it is, isn’t that a gross miscalculation/representation? Seeing how maybe those 500 people didn’t want the album or book, but are still being counted towards the sales number. Imagine a book tour from a terrible author…they will probably visit at least 10 talk shows, if each talk show has 400 guests, that would be 4,000 copies that weren’t really bought by consumers, yet are still being counted towards total sales.

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2 Answers

dpworkin's avatar

Bestseller statistics are almost always gamed. Even the New York Times list started using auditors because publishers were doing “self-buys” to drive a book up.

ETpro's avatar

The vast right wing noise machine has foundations that solicit large amounts of money to buy and then give away right-wing books they want to drive to the top of best-seller lists. It makes the USA appear more right leaning than it actually is. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x376864

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