Hitkrant

Heydays and competition

In 1983, Hitkrant started working with the Belgian magazine Joepie. Up until then, Joepie had also been sold in the Netherlands, but by taking over part of that magazine in its entirety in the renewed Hitkrant (now in A4 format), that came to an end. 

In the eighties, Hitkrant undoubtedly became the most popular pop magazine. The magazine benefited from the popularity of television programmes such as Toppop and Countdown. National and international artists were clamoring to perform in these programmes, because they wanted to reach the European market. Countdown was particularly good at responding to this: an international version on the satellite channel Sky Channel ensured that one performance reached living rooms throughout Europe. The editors of Hitkrant were regularly found at the television studios to interview these stars. 

The fact that pop music dominated youth culture to a large extent in the eighties was also evident from the rise of competing magazines. In the first half of that decade, the glossy magazine Popbiz was still popular and in 1986 Top 10 was created under the auspices of the former editor-in-chief of Muziek Expres, Dick Kooiman. But none of these initiatives could match Hitkrant: in 1987 it reached its highest circulation ever with 80,000 copies. 

Other topics

Although pop music still formed the main part of the magazine, Hitkrant also started to include articles about actors, actresses and other celebrities in the nineties. It was pure necessity: television series such as Baywatch and Beverley Hills 90210 became immensely popular and actors such as River Phoenix and Leonardo di Caprio attracted more attention from readers than the anonymous dance acts that populated the Top 40.

The readership also changed: boys gradually dropped out and so teenage girls increasingly wrote. They made their interests known through letters to the editor and the problems section, where topics such as make-up, going out and also sex were discussed. The language also changed: English words were increasingly used to discuss topics such as beauty and fashion. A six-pack was the highest accolade for a male star. The titles of the sections changed accordingly: On Ya Mind, Newsflash, Hot Interview, Street Talk and Story of my Life, all titles in English instead of Dutch.