Billboard is an American music magazine, headquartered in New York City, New York and owned by Prometheus
Global Media.
It was first published on November 1, 1894, and is distinguished as being among the oldest
trade magazines in the world.
The magazine originally focused on bill posting and outdoor amusements before specializing
in the music industry in the 1960s.
Billboard maintains several internationally recognized record charts, which track the
most popular songs and albums across several categories on a weekly basis.
Its primary charts, the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard 200, respectively rank the
top songs and albums regardless of genre, and are based on digital downloads, radio
airplay, and internet streaming.
Its data is largely based on the Nielsen SoundScan tracking system, which it has used since 1991.
History
Billboard was founded in Cincinnati on November 1, 1894, by William H. Donaldson and James
Hennegan.
Originally titled Billboard Advertising it was a trade paper for the bill posting industry,
hence the magazine's name.
Within a few years of its founding, it began to carry news of outdoor amusements, a major
consumer of billboard space.
Eventually, Billboard became the paper of record for circuses, carnivals, amusement
parks, fairs, vaudeville, minstrels, whale shows and other live entertainment.
The magazine began coverage of motion pictures in 1909 and of radio in the 1920s.
Though the first music connection was the Billboard sheet music best sellers charts
& top songs in vaudeville theaters published in 1913 but it was not a regular chart yet.
With the development of the jukebox industry during the 1930s, The Billboard began publishing
music charts.
Originally, there were only three genre-specific charts: Pop, Rhythm & Blues, and Country & Western.
In the 1950s, it introduced a section covering the television industry, including ratings
charts for programs.
It continued to carry news of fairs, carnivals, theme parks, and other outdoor entertainments
until 1961 when these departments were spun off into a new weekly magazine called Amusement
Business.
By this time, the television coverage had also been moved to a separate publication.
At the start of 1961, The Billboard was renamed Billboard Music Week.
The publication was now devoted almost entirely to the music industry, with some coverage
of coin-operated vending and entertainment machines on its jukebox pages.
The title was changed to simply Billboard at the start of 1963.
In 2005, the magazine and its web sites were repositioned to provide coverage of all forms
of digital and mobile entertainment.
Amusement Business prospered for a few decades, but was struggling by the beginning of the
21st century.
Shortly after then, its frequency of publication was reduced to monthly, and it finally ceased
publication following its May 2006 issue.
For many years, the weekly syndicated radio program American Top 40, hosted by Casey Kasem,
and Shadoe Stevens, played the top 40 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in reverse
order; in late November 1991, it switched to using the top 40 portion of the Hot 100
Airplay chart.
Later, in early 1993, it began using the Top 40 Mainstream chart until it temporarily went
off the air in 1995.
When the show returned in 1998, it no longer used Billboard charts as its source, instead
relying on Mediabase charts based purely on radio airplay.
A country music version of American Top 40, called American Country Countdown, has been
on the air since October 1973.
The show is hosted each week by Kix Brooks of the country duo Brooks & Dunn, who replaced
radio legend Bob Kingsley in January 2006.
American Country Countdown used the top 40 songs of the Hot Country Songs chart until
August 2009.
Editors
Tony Gervino Joe Levy
Danyel Smith Current operations
Record charts
Billboard, then titled The Billboard, published its first music hit parade on January 4, 1936;
its first record chart was calculated on July 20, 1940.
The Billboard Hot 100, which documents individual singles, was introduced on August 4, 1958;
the Billboard 200, which ranks full music albums, was premiered on August 17, 1963.
Today, the service provides over 100 charts, which are updated on a weekly basis.
Magazine publications Billboard Publications became a major trade
magazine publisher, acquiring The Hollywood Reporter, Kirkus Reviews, Adweek and Mediaweek.
It was acquired by Dutch publisher VNU in 1993, but later sold in 2009 along with the
other Nielsen Business Media properties to the new company e5 Global Media, which was
renamed in 2010 to Prometheus Global Media.
Billboard is intended for music professionals, such as record label executives, artists,
music retailers, and radio DJs.
Although it is generally considered a business-to-business magazine, it can be found at many consumer
bookstores and magazine stands, particularly in cities with a large music industry presence
such as New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, Austin, and Miami.
In January, 2014, it was announced that Janice Min, the editorial director for the Hollywood
Reporter, would add editorial duties at Billboard as co-president and chief creative officer
of Guggenheim Media's Entertainment Group.
Much of the magazine is available at Billboard's B2B site, Billboard.biz.
Billboard.com is the consumer-centered site, and includes artist interviews, daily news
and charts.
The group behind the billboard has an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group known as Billboard
Reads, which bought the imprint from Nielsen in 2008.
The publishing agency describes itself as "a leading publisher of music and entertainment
titles".
Billboard Music Awards The Billboard Music Award is an honor given
by Billboard.
The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually in December until it went dormant
in 2007, it returned in May 2011.
See also Billboard Brasil
Billboard Touring Awards Billboard Türkiye
References
Further reading Durkee, Rob.
American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century.
Schriner Books, New York City, 1999.
Battistini, Pete, American Top 40 with Casey Kasem The 1980s.
Authorhouse.com, January 31, 2005.
ISBN 1-4184-1070-6 External links
Official website Billboard archive on Google Books
Billboard, Nielsen Add YouTube Video Streaming To Its Ratings Platforms.
February 20, 2013.
Billboard.
Accessed January 2, 2014.