1963–64: American success

Although the band experienced huge popularity on the British record charts in early 1963, EMI's American operation, Capitol Records, declined to issue the singles "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You", their first official number one hit in the UK.^[48] Vee-Jay Records, a small Chicago label, issued the singles as part of a deal for the rights to another performer's masters. Art Roberts, music director of popular Chicago radio station WLS, placed "Please Please Me" into radio rotation in late February 1963, arguably the first time a Beatles record was heard on American radio. Vee-Jay's rights to The Beatles were later cancelled for non-payment of royalties.^[49]

In August 1963, Philadelphia-based Swan Records released "She Loves You", which also failed to receive airplay. A testing of the song on Dick Clark's TV show American Bandstand produced laughter from American teenagers when they saw the group's distinctive hairstyles.^[50] In early November 1963, Brian Epstein persuaded Ed Sullivan to present The Beatles on three editions of his show in February, and parlayed this guaranteed exposure into a record deal with Capitol Records. Capitol committed to a mid-January release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand".^[51] On 10 December 1963, a 5-minute story shot in England about the phenomenon of Beatlemania was shown on the CBS Evening News. The segment first aired on the CBS Morning News on 22 November and had originally been scheduled to be repeated on that day's Evening News, but regular programming was cancelled following the assassination of John F. Kennedy that day. The segment inspired a teenage girl named Marsha Albert living in Silver Spring, Maryland to write to Carroll James, a disc jockey at Washington DC's WWDC radio station, requesting that he play records by The Beatles. Carroll James had seen the same news story and arranged through a friend to have a copy of The Beatles' new single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sent over to him in Washington DC. Immediately after debuting the record on December 17, the station received overwhelming positive audience reaction, with the station escalating airplay of the record. Made aware of the overwhelming listener response, Capitol Records president Alan Livingston decided a few days later to take advantage of the response and rush-release the already-prepared single three weeks ahead of schedule on 26 December 1963.^[52]

Several New York radio stations—first WMCA, then WINS and WABC—began playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on its release day. The positive response to the record that had started in Washington was duplicated in New York and quickly spread to other markets. The record sold one million copies in just ten days, and by 16 January 1964, Cashbox magazine had certified the record number one, in the edition datelined 23 January. Aware that The Ed Sullivan Show was scheduled to present The Beatles live in early February, the Jack Paar Show licensed a film clip of The Beatles performing "She Loves You" from Britain's BBC and aired the footage on 3 January 1964, enabling Paar to claim that he had beaten rival Sullivan to showing The Beatles on a network TV show.