The Canadian Singles Chart is currently compiled by the U.S.-based music sales tracking company, Nielsen SoundScan. The chart is compiled every Wednesday, and is published by Jam! Canoe on Thursdays. Nielsen SoundScan is an information system created by Nielsen Media Research that tracks sales data for singles, albums, and music video products for Billboard and other music industry companies. ... Jam! is a Canadian website, which covers entertainment news. ... CANOE (acronym for Canadian Online Explorer, commonly called Canoe. ...

Originally, when the chart was incepted in 1996, there were a total of 200 positions (with the top 50 being published by Jam!). However, because of the reduced singles market in Canada, only the top 10 positions now appear on the SoundScan chart (SoundScan has a policy that at least 10 copies have to be sold in order to make its singles chart).

Since the early-1990's, single sales in Canada have decreased dramatically. By 2004, sales in Canada declined even more, because of the popularity of digital downloading of music. As a result, Canadian sales are not as substantial as they had been before in the 1990's and early-2000's, and singles remained on the chart for even lengthier periods of time.

Starting in 2005, Nielsen SoundScan compiled a Digital Tracks chart, based on download sales from Napster, Puretracks, iTunes Canada, and Archambault. In 2006, SoundScan introduced a Digital Songs chart, combining all versions of each song and ranking them accordingly (different versions of each song, appear separately on the Tracks chart). The Digital Songs chart appears in Billboard, and Billboard.biz.

The current No. 1 single on the SoundScan singles chart is Taylor Hicks' "Do I Make You Proud." The No. 1 single on the SoundScan digital download chart is Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous." Taylor Reuben Hicks[2] (born October 6, 1976[3]) is an American pop-soul singer, songwriter, and musician. ... Do I Make You Proud is a pop-soul single written for American Idol season five winner Taylor Hicks by the Absolute production team. ... Nelly Kim Furtado (born December 2, 1978) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer, and occasional actress. ... Promiscuity is the practice of making relatively unselective, casual and indiscriminate choices. ...

References

Nanda Lwin, The Canadian Singles Chart Book, Music Data Canada, (August 1996) ISBN 1-896594-09-3

Nanda Lwin, Top 40 Hits: The Essential Chart Guide, Music Data Canada, 384 pp. (September 1999) ISBN 1-896594-13-1

External links

• Canadian Top 50 Singles — also includes albums and radio charts.