My folks bought me a subscription to the weekly magazine for my 17th birthday in 1965. I studied the music charts carefully when I was in college radio the next year and programmed the station's music by and as the hits appeared on the Billboard Hot 100.
I always read with great interest Claude Hall's column VoxJox. It was the most important part of the magazine for radio employees, in which Claude presented the latest movements by radio personnel and, occasionally, info on new radio trends and formatics.
Later, after my Army time, when I programmed radio station music in the '70's through the '90's, I kept an eye on the Billboard Hot 100 along with other trades. Sadly, by the '70's, Claude Hall was gone. By the '80's, the Billboard folks had produced a wonderful series of CD's of their charted hits over the years.
Since those days, Billboard Magazine has been sold to new owners over and over, and now, it's been sold again. I don't think there's much left to present. They should go back to circus news.
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