Hits Daily Double

About Hits Daily Double

Hits Daily Double is a Los Angeles-based music industry trade publication covering record labels, charts, and the recording business. It is the online edition of Hits magazine, the irreverent industry trade magazine founded in August 1986 by Lenny Beer and Dennis Lavinthal, two veterans of independent record promotion who set out to create a fun alternative to the dry statistical bibles of the music business. By 1997, Hits had become the most successful tip sheet in the music world, and its online version, Hits Daily Double, premiered in May 2000, bringing the magazine's proprietary sales data, airplay information, and famously gossipy "Rumor Mill" column to the web. Based in Hollywood at 6906 Hollywood Boulevard, the publication remains under the editorship of co-founder Lenny Beer, who has served as editor-in-chief since its inception. It publishes at hitsdailydouble.com.

Founding in 1986

Hits was founded by Lenny Beer and Dennis Lavinthal, who had previously worked in independent promotion, the business of pitching records to radio stations on behalf of labels. The first issue appeared on August 4, 1986. Beer conceived the magazine as an irreverent alternative to Billboard: in a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said that Billboard was dry and Radio & Records was very dry, that they had terrific statistics and good hard news, but that everyone got into the entertainment business because it was fun, and Hits was the only magazine that conveyed the fun factor. The magazine quickly found its niche. Although unavailable on newsstands, it grossed more than $10 million annually in the 1990s, a remarkable figure for a trade publication. Described as equally hilarious and insulting to all willing to read it, Hits became the industry's most successful trade magazine, must-reading for label executives, radio programmers, and managers.

Lenny Beer

Lenny Beer has served as editor-in-chief of Hits since its 1986 inception, making him one of the longest-tenured editors in music journalism. Widely considered one of the most knowledgeable people in the music industry, he frequently provides commentary for publications including the New York Times and was featured in the PBS Frontline documentary "The Way the Music Died." Beyond the magazine, Beer co-founded The MGMT Company with Lavinthal in 2008; among other artists, they manage the Grammy Award-winning bands Pentatonix and A Great Big World, as well as The Airborne Toxic Event and Eagles of Death Metal. Beer invests in and produces theater, serving as a producer of Suzan-Lori Parks' "Topdog/Underdog," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 and received a Tony nomination for Best Play, and of the 2015 Broadway musical based on the film "Honeymoon in Vegas." From 2003 to 2016 he taught the UCLA Extension course "The Music Business Now: How It Really Works," guest-lectured at USC and NYU's Clive Davis Institute, and served six years on the Grammy screening committee.

Hits Daily Double goes online

An online version of the magazine, Hits Daily Double, premiered in May 2000, just as the music industry was entering the turmoil of the Napster era. The website extended the magazine's franchise to daily digital publishing, offering the same mix of data, gossip, and analysis that had made the print edition essential. The site's building album sales chart became a closely watched data source: one analysis of 640 weekly charts from April 2000 through January 2014 found it to be a unique source of exact sales numbers in an industry where figures were often rounded. The digital edition allowed Hits to publish breaking news and chart data on internet time rather than waiting for the weekly print cycle, and it became the primary way a new generation of industry professionals consumed the publication. The hitsdailydouble.com domain remains the publication's digital home.

The Rumor Mill

The "Rumor Mill" column, described as music industry news and innuendo, has been widely read within the music business since the magazine's launch. The column traffics in the signings, firings, feuds, and deals that the formal press releases never mention, written in the arch, insider voice that defined the Hits brand. Its influence derived from its accuracy as much as its wit: industry figures read it because it often knew what was happening before the official announcements. The column's tone, equally hilarious and insulting, made it both beloved and feared, and it embodied Beer's philosophy that the entertainment business should be fun. Alongside the Rumor Mill, the magazine's content includes proprietary weekly sales and airplay data, a section on breaking artists called "Vibe-Raters," interviews with music industry leaders, a weekly cartoon, music and music industry news, and charts provided by Shazam, Vevo, and Mediabase.

Data and charts

Hits built its authority on proprietary data. The magazine's weekly sales and airplay figures gave label executives and radio programmers an independent check on the industry's performance metrics, complementing the official SoundScan numbers with the publication's own reporting. The "Vibe-Raters" section spotlighted breaking artists before they crossed over, serving as an early-warning system for talent scouts and A&R executives. Charts provided by Shazam, Vevo, and Mediabase connected the publication to the streaming and airplay data reshaping the business. In the digital era, the Hits Daily Double album sales chart became a reference for chart watchers tracking the decline of album sales across the 2000s and 2010s, documenting in exact numbers the industry's transformation from a physical-sales business to a streaming economy.

Industry influence

By 1997, Hits had become the most successful tip sheet in the music world, a remarkable ascent for a publication that had positioned itself as the anti-Billboard. Its influence extended beyond its readership: the magazine's coverage could make or break industry reputations, and its willingness to mock the powerful gave it a leverage that the more sober trades lacked. The publication was not without controversy: critics accused it of going easy on advertisers, a charge the magazine denied, in a dispute that illustrated the tensions inherent in trade journalism funded by the industry it covers. But its commercial success, more than $10 million in annual gross revenue in the 1990s without newsstand distribution, proved the power of its formula: data the industry needed, delivered with an attitude the industry enjoyed.

Interviews and industry voice

Hits' interviews with music industry leaders became signature features, conducted in the publication's distinctive voice. The "HITS Interview" series has featured major executives discussing the state of the business, from publishing chiefs to label heads, in conversations that blend shop talk with the magazine's irreverent sensibility. The publication's writers cover the full range of industry news: Grammy races, radio trends, executive moves, and the strategic shifts reshaping the recording business. Muck Rack listings track the bylines of Hits Daily Double journalists, whose work chronicles an industry in constant flux. The editorial voice, set by Beer over nearly four decades, remains consistent: knowledgeable, opinionated, and unwilling to take the business too seriously even while covering it seriously.

The MGMT Company and beyond

Beer and Lavinthal extended their influence beyond publishing in 2008 by co-founding The MGMT Company, an artist management firm. The company's roster has included Grammy winners Pentatonix and A Great Big World, demonstrating that the Hits founders' industry knowledge translated into artist development. The management venture connected the publication to the creative side of the business, giving its principals firsthand experience of the challenges facing artists in the streaming era. Beer's theater producing, including the Pulitzer-winning "Topdog/Underdog," further diversified his cultural footprint. These ventures reinforced the Hits brand as insider rather than observer: the people behind the tip sheet were participants in the industry they covered.

Website and legacy

Hits Daily Double publishes at hitsdailydouble.com from its Hollywood headquarters, continuing the franchise that Lenny Beer and Dennis Lavinthal launched as a print magazine in August 1986. Nearly four decades on, the publication remains the music industry's most distinctive trade voice, the irreverent alternative that outlasted many of the sober competitors it mocked. Its proprietary data, its Rumor Mill, and its insistence that the entertainment business should be fun have made it an institution: the tip sheet that the industry could not ignore, delivered daily to the inboxes and browsers of the people who make the music business run.