Hit single

A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Though it sometimes means any widely played or big-selling song, the term "hit" usually refers to a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio airplay or significant commercial sales.

Historically, before the dominance of recorded music, commercial sheet music sales of individual songs were similarly promoted and tracked as singles and albums are now. For example, in 1894, Edward B. Marks and Joe Stern released The Little Lost Child, which sold more than a million copies nationwide, based mainly on its success as an illustrated song, analogous to today's music videos.

Chart hits

In the United States and the United Kingdom, a single is usually considered a hit when it reaches the official Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 or the Top 75 of the 'UK Singles Chart' and stays there for at least one week. The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles has used this definition since the 1970s. Some argue that reaching at least the top 100—since the Official Charts Company increased the chart size on their website on 23 June 2007—lets a single be considered a hit due to the increasing singles market after chart rules included download singles.

Terry Lane

Terry Lane is a radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist based in Melbourne, Australia.

He was born in South Australia and was educated at Gawler High School. After studying for the ministry at the Churches of Christ College of the Bible in Melbourne, Lane was a minister for six years before working in the Methodist Department of Christian Education and the ABC's religious department. He began a radio talk-back program for the ABC in Melbourne in 1977, but was controversially sacked after eleven months.

The Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia describes Lane as "a capable and empathetic interviewer, though often expounding controversial views". Geraldine Doogue has called him "an interviewer’s interviewer; he’s self-effacing, but probing, and these days [2005], certainly not afraid of expressing his own opinions. He’s gloriously unpredictable, offends listeners of both liberal and conservative inclinations, and delights just as many others."

Lane is probably best known for his daily radio program, which ran from 1982 to 1993 on 3LO, 2BL, 7ZR and 2NC. In 1995, he returned to the ABC's Radio National to present a weekly program, the National Interest, from which he retired in 2005.