1515 Broadway, 14th Floor
New York, N.Y. 10036-8901
Editor's Note: In the newspaper industry, The Wall Street Journal is one of the reigning deities and when it comes to the entertainment industry, Billboard pretty much occupies a similar status. It's a must-read in the trade, with a circulation over 50,000. Because editorial content spans everything from personnel announcements to high-profile deals, you'd think that its staff is receptive to a fair amount of pitches but Billboard editors aren't. Give them hot tips or industry information (editors won't even use the word "pitch"). Billboard has a tight-knit nucleus of long-time editors who know all the tricks and scaring up coverage is tough.
SECTIONS
News/Sections (including home video and retailing)
Billboard features six to eight "front-of-the-book" pages in each weekly issue that focus on artists' stories with a unique bent, breaking news and exposes or analyses of key trends and industry issues.
Back-of-the-book content includes coverage about home videos, music videos and retailing, including marketing stories.
EDITORS
N.Y.:
Managing Editor
Susan Nunziata
Fax: 212/536-5358
Home Video Editor
Seth Goldstein
Fax: 212/536-5358
Other key fax numbers:
L.A. - 213/525-2394; and
Nashville - 615/320-0454
DAYS TO CONTACT/DAYS TO AVOID
It's pretty frenetic at Billboard every day, especially on Wednesdays, but deadlines do vary. Its assorted sections - i.e., country, rhythm and blues, radio, international, retail and home video - have staggered deadlines and close between Friday and Monday.
Page 1 and breaking news closes later (the pub's put to bed on Wednesday) and is trafficked by News Editor Marilyn Gillen. (Also, Page 1 news must go past Editor in Chief Timothy White before it ends up in print.)
METHODS
You might have expected this, but the mantra once again: no calls, no calls, no calls! Even though preferences for how information is received varies slightly from editor to editor, generally you can't go wrong by faxing first and using snail mail or e-mail second (the addresses are easy: the first initial of the editor's firstname, followed by their last name, and then @billboard.com.
COMMENTS
"We throw out reams of paper," Nunziata says. "And that's because most of the information we get is so generic and doesn't do us a lot of good since we want to be the first source...We try to get ahead of embargoed news and get advanced artists' cassettes way before the release date."
And Seth Goldstein, the home video editor, provided this perspective: "I cover the marketing surrounding a new video, not just a story about a new video...We're not how-to and a new title alone just doesn't do it." He also said that even though reading the publication should provide the framework for PR pros to discern Billboard's style and signal what they need, "You'd be amazed how many people have no idea what we do."