How Billboard Magazine is becoming irrelevant

Billboard Magazine, irrelevant? (this article is incomplete; first draft)

By Joe Viglione

Billboard Magazine has ruined the very thing that attracted readers: THE CHARTS, just as they destroyed their credibility with radio charts and allowed Radio and Records to become the "Bible", the "authority".

When Soundscan entered the scene Billboard had to pair up with it or die on the vine.
But instead of creating a hybrid of immediate sales, downloads, information from "mom & pop" stores - the brick & mortar independent outlets who aren't on Soundscan, rather than do the hard work that goes in to getting objective and tangible information, Billboard has created a situation where, perhaps, certain companies find ways to "buy up" product to manipulate Soundscan and get allegedly fraudulent appearances on certain charts.

Stop: The Charts You Save May Be Your Own
(sung to the tune of The Jackson 5)

Unlike the Boston Globe which failed to pair up with Monster.com, Billboard did pair up with Soundscan (while buying out its major competition, Radio & Records).
So the magazine which might've had a Ramones tune 19 places higher than what the competition (Cashbox, Record World, Variety, take your pick) had back in the 1970s New Wave era also had the possibility of an executive at the Ramones' record label having worked at Billboard years before.

I'm not saying that because a former Billboard employee may have been an executive at a record label that seems to have gotten higher placement on the Billboard charts than the Ramones 45 got on the competitors' charts means that something strange was happening, I'm just saying that this possible coincidence wasn't very helpful in regards to credibility for the iconic publication, Billboard.

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Or how about The Bee Gees "Love You Inside Out" which may have slipped in from the #2 spot to #1 (check the charts on the competitors lists!) for a week so that the Bee Gees could have Six #1's in a row. If memory serves "Love You Inside Out" was a legitimate #2 hit, not a #1.

"The Bee Gees' follow-up to Saturday Night Fever was the Spirits Having Flown album. It yielded three more #1 hits: "Too Much Heaven", "Tragedy", and "Love You Inside Out." This gave the act six consecutive #1 singles in America within a year and a half (a record surpassed only by Whitney Houston)."

Late 1970s: Saturday Night Fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Gees

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Heck, why was Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" kept out of the #1 spot on Billboard when it was a legitimate #1 on Cashbox? The crossover hit was a smash Pop, C & W and Urban hit, yet why didn't it hit #1 on Billboard?

Preview this book

The Billboard book of #2 singles By Christopher G. Feldman

http://books.google.com/books?id=-LgXlQnsDK4C&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=1966+Charts++Billboard++SUNNY&source=bl&ots=MGtyOomg5I&sig=HbB7T_QkYyWl2VAT51xMKpktRjg&hl=en&ei=aRVWSuLKDNSetgffiOiTBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

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Anyone want to talk about Louie Louie by The Kingsmen and Dominique by The Singing Nun?

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BOSTON GLOBE/MONSTER.COM
Check out this New York Times article, April 13, 2009
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/the-boston-globe-and-monstercom/

The big news in the article today is that the Globe turned down a proposal to invest $1 million in the fledgling Monster.com in the mid-1990’s. That would have been a huge infusion of cash and value to the Globe, while diversifying its revenue sources. written by: Nicholas D. Kristof

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So Billboard paired up with Soundscan while it lost its radio pages totally to Radio & Records. No problem, they went and purchased R & R (and industrywide everyone was silently saying "Oh No!") and then, you guessed it, closed R & R down!

Trade publication Radio & Records shuttered | Entertainment | Industry | Reuters

Source: http://www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON (Radio & Records) - The Nielsen Co. on Wednesday announced that it was ending publication of Radio & Records, known in the radio business for the past 36 years as R&R. Publication.
http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSTRE5527NI20090603

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Radio & Records shut down a month ago. Our industry needs an entire restructuring. Ice, R & R, Record World (is Cashbox clinging to life or is it gone too?) - this is insanity.

And to make matters worse, Billboard is now screwing with the charts by not allowing catalog items to appear on the Hot 100! What a joke!

Article by Paul Grein:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chart_watch/35974/week-ending-july-5-2009-all-michael-all-the-time/

Number Ones sold 339,000 copies this week and would have held at #1 on The Billboard 200 if catalog albums were eligible to compete on that chart. (The 2003 compilation sold a little more than twice as many copies this week as NOW 31, the album that holds the #1 spot.) Thriller sold 187,000 copies and would have jumped from #3 to #2 if catalog albums were invited to the party. The Essential Michael Jackson sold 125,000 copies and would have dropped from #2 to #5. (Billboard excludes catalog albums from the big chart on the theory that new albums need the spotlight the chart provides more than past hits do.)

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So, perhaps it is time for a new magazine to take over? Variety is positioned to do so?
Why not reactivate Radio World with an Ice Magazine edge to it?

NOTES:
Another fine article from Kristof somewhat related:
April 3, 2009, 11:27 am

The pain in the papers, and the search for a business model By Nicholas Kristof

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-pain-in-the-papers-and-the-search-for-a-business-model/