Radio & Records, once known as the Radio Industry’s newspaper, is no more. The current owners of R&R shut them down this week with no warning. All the full charts that were free are now available online via the pay site at Billboard.
In my opinion, R&R ceased to be when the parent of Billboard bought them out in 2006. The “newspaper” became a slick magazine, replacing Billboard’s Radio Monitor magazine. Before 2006, R&R was a great alternative to Billboard when looking at charts. Rick Dees and Casey Kasem used their charts for countdown shows. R&R used to have a messageboard where fans could get together and talk charts. Even one of their editors used to use the same board to talk to chart fans. How many other publications would have their editors talk to non-industry people on the ‘net?
R&R event asked fans to help with an upcoming book in the early part of this decade. Unfortunately, the book never was published, but at least we were asked to help.
Goodbye R&R, you’ll be missed…
