The first taste of the fan madness surrounding the Beatles appeared in the US in 1963 in the form of the newspaper articles. This was followed by American newspapers and television programs following the band and this created the phenomenon known as Beatlemania, later on.
To the end of 1963, record stores in the US were drowning in requests for the Beatles’ records. Early the following year Beatlemania was in full swing. One TV channel ran concert footage ‘as a joke’, but this ‘joke’ ended up being watched by over 30 million viewers. In February 1964, the CBS ran a story about the Beatles’ United States arrival that afternoon in which the correspondent said, ‘The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania.’ That week, the Beatles showed up on a talk show and the ratings estimated that 45% of viewers were watching the show that night.
The Beatles’ popularity kept growing rapidly in the following months. In early April 1964, they held the top five positions on the Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, and to this day, no one has been able to come even close to that achievement. The group’s incredible success continued until they broke up in 1970.
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