Billboard

Overview

Billboard is the 131-year-old music trade brand behind the charts that decide what a hit is: the Hot 100, the Billboard 200, and the Global 200. It began in 1894 as an eight-page monthly for the bill-posting trade and has spent the decades since reinventing itself every time the music business changed shape (Billboard; Billboard).

Its most recent reinvention is also the one no reference profile covers. In September 2020, the brand did two things within eight days: it launched the first authoritative global song chart, and it agreed to fold its operations into a joint venture with the owner of longtime rival Variety. On September 15, the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. premiered, ranking the biggest songs on the planet from data across more than 200 territories (Music Ally). On September 23, Penske Media Corporation and MRC announced PMRC, a joint venture that would operate Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Vibe alongside Variety, Rolling Stone and Music Business Worldwide - putting the two great Hollywood trades, rivals for some 90 years, under one roof for the first time (Pollstar).

The 2020 double move

The global charts were a genuine first. Billboard described them as the first authoritative rankings of the top songs worldwide, built on a weighted formula of official-only streams - on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of leading digital platforms - and downloads from key online retailers, with radio airplay excluded (Music Ally). The inaugural Global 200, unveiled on Monday, September 14, was topped by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” - the most-streamed song in the world for the week ending September 10, with 100.9 million global streams. The same day brought the Global Excl. U.S. chart, which ranks the top songs outside the United States; Maluma’s “Hawái” was its first No. 1, with 85.3 million streams (BET).

“WAP” was already a phenomenon: released August 7, it pulled in 93 million first-week streams - the most of any song in 2020 - and was certified gold by the RIAA within a week of release. That same week it also reclaimed the Hot 100 from BTS’s “Dynamite,” tying Cardi’s own previous record for “Bodak Yellow” and giving her a fourth chart-topper - extending her record for the most No. 1s by a female rapper (BET).

The corporate move was just as significant. The PMRC deal, announced September 23 by PMC CEO Jay Penske and MRC co-CEOs Asif Satchu and Modi Wiczyk, was a two-part joint venture: one to operate the magazines, another for MRC - owner of Dick Clark Productions, which produces the Billboard Music Awards and the American Music Awards - to develop film, TV, live events and other projects from PMRC brands’ stories and intellectual property. Financial terms were not disclosed. Both companies said there would be no leadership changes and that each would keep operating independently, with day-to-day operations led by PMC; The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard and Vibe would move to PMC’s tech and delivery platforms (Pollstar; MediaPost).

From literal billboards to the Hot 100

The name is not a metaphor. On November 1, 1894, Billboard Advertising published its first issue out of an Ohio office with a mission that explains everything: “a monthly resume of all that is new, bright and interesting on the boards.” The eight-page magazine, priced at 10 cents an issue or 99 cents a year, was “devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents & secretaries of fairs.” Its first cover subject was R.C. Campbell, then-president of the Associated Bill Posters’ Association (Billboard).

The paper’s early issues reported on bill posters’ working methods - including, according to the first issue, men who would glue ads on ash cans, piles of bricks and even a dead horse. By 1900, carnivals, fairs and vaudeville productions had taken over its pages; a music column started in 1905, and sheet-music sales coverage joined in 1913. The magazine was renamed The Billboard in 1897, picked up the nickname “Billyboy” by the 1910s, and officially became Billboard in 1961 (Billboard).

The charts themselves arrived in stages. Before there was a national chart, Billboard tracked “Sheet Music Best Sellers,” “Records Most Popular on Music Machines” (compiled from reports by phonograph operators), and “Songs With the Most Radio Plugs” on a handful of New York stations. The first national music chart - the 10-position “National List of Best Selling Retail Records,” polling retailers nationwide on record sales - appeared in the July 27, 1940 issue. Tommy Dorsey’s “I’ll Never Smile Again,” with vocals by Frank Sinatra, crowned that first list and spent 12 weeks at the summit. The albums chart became a weekly chart on March 24, 1956, the forerunner of today’s Billboard 200. And the Billboard Hot 100 premiered on August 4, 1958, with Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” as its first No. 1 (Billboard).

In the streaming era, the Hot 100 added streams to its weekly tabulation, and the chart menu expanded to the Artist 100, touring tallies, songwriter and producer rankings, the Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S., and Twitter-powered Hot Trending Songs. The brand grew well past print too, encompassing the Billboard Music Awards, Women in Music events, industry conferences and podcasts (Billboard).

The scoreboard: Minaj, Cardi, and the records the charts mint

No artist has bent the Hot 100’s record book quite like Nicki Minaj. On the chart dated April 1, 2017, she debuted three songs at once - “No Frauds” with Drake and Lil Wayne at No. 14, “Regret in Your Tears” at No. 61 and “Changed It” with Lil Wayne at No. 71 - lifting her career total to 76 entries and passing Aretha Franklin’s 73 for the most Hot 100 appearances among women. Franklin had held the mark nearly 40 years, since June 18, 1977, when “Break It to Me Gently” became her 54th entry and moved her past Connie Francis (Stereogum).

Minaj’s Hot 100 story started as a featured artist: her first entry was on Lil Wayne’s “Knockout” on the chart dated February 20, 2010, followed by her first lead credit, “Your Love,” that August. By 2017 she had 13 top 10s, with 2014’s “Anaconda” - peaking at No. 2 - her highest-charting hit to that point; fitting the collaborative style of hip-hop, she had lead billing on 32 of her 76 entries and featured billing on 44 (Stereogum). The next year she became the first female rapper to pass 100 Hot 100 entries, and by 2025 Billboard’s own staff list of the 25 greatest female rappers of all time put her at No. 1 - ahead of Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill, Lil Kim and Queen Latifah - citing 149 Hot 100 entries and the highest-grossing tour by a female rapper, the Pink Friday 2 World Tour. “Minaj quickly usurped the throne and stylistically rewrote the playbook for female rappers,” the magazine wrote, “while becoming an architect of pop music in the process” (Black Enterprise).

The charts also mint milestones in real time. Cardi B’s “WAP” - the first song to top the Global 200 - simultaneously extended her own record for the most Hot 100 No. 1s by a female rapper with her fourth, after tying her “Bodak Yellow” three-week run (BET).

What this profile does not claim

The founders’ names and the Cincinnati location reported elsewhere for Billboard’s origins could not be confirmed in a fully-read source, so this profile states only what Billboard’s own anniversary columns verify: a November 1, 1894 first issue out of an Ohio office. It does not claim the PMRC joint venture is still Billboard’s operating structure - no fully-read source covers post-2020 ownership. It states the Hot 100’s methodology only as verified: streams were added to the weekly tabulation, alongside sales and airplay data, without asserting exact formula weights. It does not cite print circulation or web readership figures, which are lead-index only, and it does not describe the Billboard Music Awards or Women in Music beyond their existence as brand extensions.