Billboard magazine

Billboard is a long-running American trade and consumer print publication that covers news, issues, and trends related to the music industry. It is widely known for its music charts that rank the popularity of albums, songs, and artists based on sales, airplay, and streaming.

The magazine publishes a minimum of 20 standard issues a year, and its weekly music charts, including, but not limited to, Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, and Billboard Global 200, are updated each Tuesday on billboard.com.

Early history

Founded by poster salesmen William H. Donaldson and James H. Hennegan, the magazine, initially named Billboard Advertising, started as a publication aimed at professionals in the billboard and advertising industries. The first issue was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1, 1894, with the cover statement, “Devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents and secretaries of fairs.”

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The magazine began its shift to covering the entertainment industry in 1897 and shortened its name to The Billboard to reflect the change. In 1900 Donaldson purchased Hennegan’s interest in the company, becoming the sole owner. He began covering performers from a wide variety of entertainment genres, including musicians and radio, circus, and carnival performers, earning the publication its reputation for being the “showman’s bible.”

It was not until September 1905 that a column devoted entirely to music was first published, and in 1909 promoters known as “song pluggers” began to be featured. During this time Donaldson also introduced the “Letter-Box” column, a method for traveling performers to receive mail at the magazine’s office and get a notification in the column when they had mail waiting. The service created a sense of connection between the magazine and performers, making the magazine the heart of the entertainment world.

In 1938 the magazine introduced its first weekly record popularity chart, which was based on jukebox record sales. It was followed up with the list of best-selling retail records in 1940, with the inaugural number one being “I’ll Never Smile Again” by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and featuring Frank Sinatra. 1945 saw the addition of a chart for most radio airplay, and in 1955 the three charts were combined into the Top 100 Singles, which was renamed Hot 100 and copyrighted in 1958 to stand out from imitators.

Meanwhile, the magazine’s editorial offices briefly moved to Brighton, Ohio, in 1946 before permanently moving to New York City in 1948, where the headquarters remain today.

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Becoming Billboard

In 1961 the magazine transitioned to focus solely on music, no longer covering general entertainment. To highlight the change, it was renamed Billboard Music Week. Its final name change, to Billboard, occurred two years later in 1963, although it changed to the all lowercase billboard in 2013. During the 1960s the magazine was aimed at professional musicians, but it eventually shifted to featuring topics for avid music listeners. From 1970 to 1995 the magazine’s music charts were used for the countdown radio show American Top 40.

Over the years, ownership of the magazine passed through Donaldson’s family until it was sold to private investors in the mid-1980s. It was sold again in 1987 to Affiliated Publications. From then it changed ownership several times until September 2020 when ownership was transferred to a new media entity, PMRC, that was formed between Penske Media Corporation and Media Rights Capital.

The magazine underwent a design change and repositioning in 2005, which included a less cluttered cover and increased coverage of digital entertainment and bands not signed by record labels. Another redesign in 2013 created the all-lowercase typeface for the cover logo and removed the colors from the circular letters. It also redesigned the music charts on a larger-scale spread across more pages for easier reading.

Billboard is still considered a leading music industry publication.

Music charts

Billboard has more than 200 music charts. In addition to Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, and Billboard Global 200, others include Billboard Artist 100, Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, Hot Country Songs, Hot Rap Songs, Hot R&B Songs, Hot Latin Songs, Hot Christian Songs, and Hot Gospel Songs. The weekly charts are based on sales, airplay, and streaming between Friday and Thursday each week and are updated on the website on Tuesdays.

Before November 30, 1991, sales and airplay information for the charts was compiled manually from record stores and radio stations. After that, the magazine began using data collected by Nielsen SoundScan and Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems.

As the music industry has overwhelmingly moved to streaming, tracking physical sales of vinyl and CDs has declined in importance, and questions about methodology have arisen. In the 21st century sales information is compiled by Luminate, an entertainment analytics platform. Billboard states that the data reflects more than 90 percent of the market, including retail and internet sales. Airplay data is compiled by Luminate with information from more than 140 markets across the United States tracked by Mediabase, a monitoring and reporting service. Luminate also provides streaming data.

While many Billboard charts are based specifically on sales, radio, or streaming information, some are based on a combination of the data. Billboard also marks a chart’s highest ranking new entry; songs or albums with the largest increase in sales, airplay, and streaming categories; songs in the top 20 with increases in plays and audience; and albums with the chart’s largest growth percentage.