Bill board

Billboard (stylized in lowercase) is an American weekly magazine and a specialized list of information about the music industry. It is also one of the oldest specialized magazines in the world. world and maintains several internationally recognized music charts, in which the most popular songs and albums are found, classified in various categories. The most famous list, “Billboard Hot 100”, ranks the top 100 songs regardless of the musical genre they belong to, based on physical, digital, streaming and radio airplay sales. The "Billboard 200" is a list of the 200 best-selling music albums in the United States and the Billboard Global 200 is the weekly Music Hit List and is the pioneering magazine of the music industry in the world.

Founded in 1894, originally it reported on circus events, carnival celebrations, fairs, festivals and amusement parks, but the musical theme was expanded to such an extent that, in the fifties, the other themes were separated and published in a independent magazine.

History

Early history

First number Billboard (1894).

The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, by William Donaldson and James Hennegan on November 1, 1894. Initially, it covered the advertising and billboard industry, and was known as Billboard Advertising. At that time, billboards, billboards, and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the primary means of advertising. Donaldson handled writing and advertising, while Hennegan, owner of the Hennegan Printing Co., managed the magazine's production. The first issues had only eight pages. The newspaper had columns such as "Gossip from the ticket room" and "The indefatigable and tireless banknote cartel industry". A department of agricultural fairs was created in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897.

After a brief exit over editorial differences, Donaldson bought out Hennegan's share of the business in 1900 for $500 (equivalent to about $13,100 in early 2020 to save it from bankruptcy. On May 5, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a weekly with a greater emphasis on breaking news, improved editorial quality, and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, and Paris, and also refocused the magazine toward entertainment by such as fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville, and burlesque shows.A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of outdoor events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics such as regulation, unprofessionalism, the economy and new shows, he had a 'stage gossip' column covering the private lives of performers, a section on " 34;tent shows"qu e covered traveling shows and a subsection called "Freaks to order". According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published news articles "attacking censorship, praising productions who exhibited "good taste" and fighting against yellow journalism".

As the railroad developed, Billboard established a mail delivery system for traveling artists. An artist's location was tracked in the "Routes Ahead" of the newspaper, then Billboard would receive the mail on behalf of the star and place an ad in their "Letter-Box" that I had mail for them. This service was first introduced in 1904, and became one of the largest sources of Billboard profits and celebrity connections. By 1914, there were 42,000 people using the service. It was also used as the official address for traveling entertainers for draft letters during World War I. In the 1960s, when it was discontinued, Billboard was still processing 1,500 letters per week.

In 1920, Donaldson took a controversial step by hiring African-American journalist James Albert Jackson to write a weekly column devoted to African-American artists. According to The Business of Culture: Strategic Perspectives on Entertainment and Media, the column identified discrimination against black artists and helped validate their careers. Jackson was the first black reviewer in a national magazine with a predominantly white audience. According to his granddaughter, Donaldson also established a policy against identifying artists by race, Donaldson died in 1925.

Focus on the music

The Billboard publisher shifted focus as recording and playback technology developed, covering "marvels of modern technology" such as the phonograph and wireless radios, he began covering coin-operated amusement machines in 1899, creating a section dedicated to them called "Amusement Machines." in March 1932. Billboard began covering the film industry in 1907, but ended up focusing on music due to competition from Variety. He started a radio station in the 1920s.

The jukebox industry continued to grow during the Great Depression, and there was a lot of advertising on Billboard,{rp|262}}, which made the publisher even more focused on music. The proliferation of the phonograph and radio also contributed to his growing musical emphasis. Billboard published the first music hit parade on January 4, 1936, and introduced a "Record Buying Guide" in January 1939. In 1940, he introduced the "Chart Line", which kept track of best-selling records, and was followed by a chart of jukebox records in 1944 called the Music Box Machine charts. In the 1940s, Billboard was more of a specialized music industry publication. The number of charts it published grew after World War II, due to the growing variety of interests and genres. musicals. In 1987 it had eight charts, covering different genres and formats, and 28 charts in 1994.

By 1943, Billboard had about 100 employees. The magazine's offices moved to Brighton, Ohio, in 1946, and then to New York in 1948. In November 1950, it was adopted a five-column tabloid format, and in January 1963 coated paper was used for the first time in the print issues of Billboard, allowing for photojournalism. Billboard Publications Inc. acquired a monthly trade magazine for salespeople of candy and tobacco machines called Vend, and, in the 1950s, acquired an advertising trade publication called Tide. In 1969, Billboard Publications Inc. owned of eleven trade and consumer publications, a publisher called Watson-Guptill Publications, a set of self-study cassette tapes, and four television franchises. It also acquired Photo Weekly that year.

Over time, the topics that Billboard continued to cover outside of music spun off into separate publications: Funspot magazine was created in 1957 to cover amusement parks, and Amusement Business was created in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment. In January 1961, Billboard was renamed Billboard Music Week to emphasize his new exclusive interest in music. Two years later, was renamed to just Billboard. According to The New Business Journalism, in 1984, Billboard Publications was a "thriving" trade magazine conglomerate, and Billboard had become the "undisputed leader" of music industry news. In the early 1990s, Billboard introduced Billboard Airplay Monitors, a publication for disc jockeys and music programmers. In the 1990s, Billboard called itself the "bible" of the recording industry.

Ownership Changes

Billboard ran into trouble after the death of its founder, William Donaldson, in 1925, and, within three years, was heading for bankruptcy again. Donaldson's son-in-law took over the company in 1928 and "nurtured the publication back to health." His sons Bill and Roger became co-publishers in 1946 and inherited the publication in the late 1970s after the death of Roger Littleford. They sold it to private investors in 1985 for an estimated $40 million. The investors cut costs and acquired a trade publication for the Broadway theater industry called Backstage.

In 1987, Billboard was sold back to Affiliated Publications for $100 million. Billboard Publications Inc. became a subsidiary of Affiliated Publications called BPI Communications. As BPI Communications, it acquired The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, Marketing Week, and Mediaweek, and also bought Broadcast Data Systems, a high-tech music airtime tracking company. Private investors from Boston Ventures and executives from BPI bought back a two-thirds stake in Billboard Publications for $100 million, and more acquisitions followed. In 1993, he created a division known as Billboard Music Group for music-related publications.

In 1994, Billboard Publications was sold to Dutch media conglomerate Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen (VNU) for $220 million.{efn|19 publications according to the Chicago Tribune} VNU acquired the Awards Advertising Clio and the National Research Group in 1997, as well as Editor & Publisher in 1999. In July 2000, it paid $650 million for Miller Freeman publishing house. BPI combined with other UNV entities in 2000 to form Bill Communications Inc. By the time CEO Gerald Hobbs retired in 2003, UNV had grown substantially but was heavily indebted from acquisitions. A $7 billion takeover attempt of IMS Health in 2005 sparked shareholder protests, which halted the deal; eventually, he accepted an $11 billion takeover offer from investors in 2006.

VNU later changed its name to Nielsen in 2007, the name of a company it acquired for $2.5 billion in 1999. New CEO Robert Krakoff divested some of the publications he previously owned, restructured the organization and planned some acquisitions before dying suddenly in 2007; he was subsequently replaced by Greg Farrar.

Nielsen owned Billboard until 2009, when it was one of eight publications sold to e5 Global Media Holdings. e5 was formed by investment firms Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners for the purpose of the acquisition. The following year, the new parent company was renamed Prometheus Global Media. Three years later, Guggenheim Partners acquired Pluribus' interest in Prometheus and became the sole owner of Billboard.

In December 2015, Guggenheim Digital Media spun off several media brands, including Billboard, to its own executive Todd Boehly. The assets operate under the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a unit of the Eldridge Industries holding company.

1990s-present

Timothy White was appointed editor-in-chief in 1991, a position he held until his unexpected death in 2002. White wrote a weekly column promoting music with "artistic merit," with violent or misogynistic themes, and also reworked the publication's music charts. Rather than relying on data from music retailers, the new charts used data from store checkout scanners obtained from Nielsen SoundScan. White also wrote in-depth profiles on the musicians, but was replaced by Keith Girard, who was subsequently fired in May 2004. He and an employee filed a $29 million lawsuit alleging that Billboard unfairly fired them with the intent to damage their reputations. The lawsuit claimed they had suffered sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, and a lack of editorial integrity for financial reasons. Evidence from the emails suggested that human resources was given special instructions to monitor minority employees. The case was settled out of court in 2006 for an undisclosed sum.

In the 2000s, the economic decline of the music industry dramatically reduced readership and advertising from Billboard's traditional audience. Circulation declined from 40,000 copies over the years 90 to fewer than 17,000 in 2014. The publication's staff and ownership also underwent frequent changes.

In 2004, Tamara Conniff became the first woman and youngest executive editor at Billboard, leading its first major redesign since the 1960s, led by Daniel Stark and Stark Design.. During his tenure, Billboard booth sales increased 10%, ad pages increased 22%, and conference registrations increased 76%. In 2005, Billboard expanded its editorial outside of the music industry to other areas of digital and mobile entertainment. In 2006, after running the Billboard radio publication, former ABC News and CNN journalist Scott McKenzie was named editorial director of all Billboard properties. Conniff launched the Billboard Women in Music event in 2007.

Bill Werde was appointed editorial director in 2008, succeeded in January 2014 by Janice Min, also responsible for editorial content for The Hollywood Reporter. Since then, the magazine has made changes to turning it into a general-interest music news source, rather than solely an industry trade, branching out to cover more celebrities, fashion, and gossip. Min hired Tony Gervino as the publication's editor, which was unusual as she had no experience in the music industry. Tony Gervino was named editor-in-chief in April 2014. An NPR article covered a leaked version of Billboard's annual poll, which he said had more gossip and focused on less professional topics. than previous surveys. For example, she polled readers about a lawsuit singer Kesha filed against her producer alleging sexual abuse.

Gervino was fired in May 2016. A note from Min to the newsroom indicated that SVP of digital content, Mike Bruno, would be head of the newsroom going forward. On June 15, 2016, BillboardPH was announced, the first chart company Billboard in Southeast Asia, primarily in the Philippines. On September 12, 2016, Billboard expanded into China with the launch of Billboard China in a partnership with Vision Music Ltd.

On September 23, 2020, it was announced that Penske Media Corporation would assume the operations of MRC Media & Info under a joint venture with MRC known as PMRC. The joint venture includes management of Billboard.

Billboard Charts

On January 4, 1936, Billboard published the first music ranking and on July 20, 1940, it published its first music popularity chart (“Music Popularity Chart”). in English). Since 1958 the "Hot 100" list has been published, combining sales of singles and their rotation on radio stations. Billboard publishes more than 100 charts each week, with the most popular being the Hot 100 (for songs), Billboard 200 (for albums) and Social 50 (for artists).

Image gallery

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  First edition

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  Christmas Edition, 1896

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  10th Anniversary Edition