Billboard Magazine History

History of a Music Magazine

Billboard magazine is primarily a music industry publication. Billboard magazine is one of the top leading magazines in the music industry. The magazine has a huge impact on the music business and its artists. While many regard Billboard as the contemporary guide to the music business, the magazine debut publication was in 1894, before the music industry as we know it today existed.  Billboard magazine was first launched in the fall of 1894 by two partners of the names; William H. Donald and James H. Hennegan. This was made as a publication for the billposting business. Both had worked with the printing industries prior to the publication of Billboard magazine. Donaldson saw the need for a new publication that would inform the roving bill posters of industry news; what’s more, the new publication could help both the families printing first stay in touch with their major clients. The magazine was named ‘Billboard Advertising’ and was published monthly. The first issue came out on November 1^st 1894 and was eight pages long and with a cover price of 10 cents.

The magazine's first cover main story was R.C. Campbell; who at that time was president of the Billboard magazine  company.  In June 1896, the first signs of entertainment coverage started appearing into ‘Billboard Advertising’ with the introduction of a fair advertisement. The magazine began reporting on the carnival and fair attraction. The magazine also began running ads such as colourfully named attractions such as cook’s royal roman hippodrome. In February 1897, ‘Billboard Advertising’ made a huge shift in direction. The magazine had shortened the name to just ‘The Billboard’ and carried the name to 1961. Listing of fair and ads for outdoor attraction began to dominate the magazine. By the time the 1960’s came around, the magazine was still called ‘The Billboard’ and coverage of tent shows and carny pitchmen still shared space with the music stories, charts and reviews. 

                                                                                                                                                                     

It was time for another huge change and so with the issue dated January 9^th 1961 the carnival and fair coverage was put into a new publication and ‘The Billboard’ took on a new name ‘Billboard Music Week’. Billboard was no longer business magazine but a music magazine. Today ‘Billboard’ magazine is now managed by president and publisher John Killcullen, with editors Tamara Conniff and Ken Schlager. Under the new managment, the magazine underwent a major redesign. Although music is still the heart of the matter the magazine and its new platformed website have expanded their scope to cover all manner of digital and mobile entertainment. ‘Billboard’ is now read in more than 100       countries and attracts more than 2.5 million readers each month.