Phone was a monthly free record promotion that appeared in the Netherlands in the first half of the 60's. The magazine gave summaries of singles released. Categories had names like "musicians of the melody" ("classical editions"), "opera: famous arias and choirs", "teenage music", "schlager parade", "Dutch successes" and "our hit parade" different target groups were served. The price of the single was usually mentioned.
From February 27, 1960, the publisher sent weekly hitlists to the American Billboard magazine, which she published in the Hits of the World section. On 29 July 1960, the name of the publisher and, consequently, the hit list changed to Fonorama. Remarkably, the Top 20 lists were not printed in their own Phone tab. It was a regular occurrence that no lists were provided. Billboard was full than publishing the previous list or did not place a Dutch list at all. Nevertheless, the list is considered to be the first weekly hit parade in the Netherlands. The first number one hit in the Phones hit parade was Milord of Corry Brokken. With 16 weeks at number one, Milord, together with Paradiso of Anneke Grönloh, is the number one to date ranked the first place in a Dutch hit list, but Paradiso only stood 16 weeks in the first place. On May 22, 1961, the last hit list of Fonorama appeared in the American magazine. The record promotion magazine Platennieuws put together the hit parade for Billboard from 19 June 1961 and returned the list to 10 listings.
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