Co-creator Casey Kasem hosted the original AT40 from its inauguration on July 4, 1970 until August 6, 1988, and returned to host the revived version from March 28, 1998 to January 3, 2004. (For much of the interim, he hosted the competing Casey's Top 40.) Its other two regular hosts have been Shadoe Stevens (1988–1995) and current host Ryan Seacrest (since 2004). As of March 2009, AT40 with Seacrest airs in two different formats - one for Contemporary Hit Radio and one for Adult Contemporary (formerly Hot Adult Contemporary) stations - with no on-air differentiation other than the charts themselves. Kasem is still heard in two weekly replays of vintage shows from the '70s and '80s, respectively.
As its title implies, AT40 counts down the forty most popular songs in the United States of America, from #40 to #1. The show used Billboard charts in its early years, touting it as "the only source" for the countdown; then, switched to those from Radio and Records upon its late 1990s return. The charts currently are based on data from Mediabase, and published in the Tuesday Edition of USA Today.
American Top 40 began on the Independence Day weekend in 1970, on seven radio stations, the very first being KDEO in El Cajon, California (now KECR), which broadcasted the inaugural show the evening of July 3, 1970. The chart data broadcast actually included the top 40 songs from the week ending July 11, 1970. The very first show featured the very last time both Elvis Presley and The Beatles had songs simultaneously in the Top 10. It was originally distributed by Watermark Inc., and was first presented in mono until it started recording in stereo in September 1972. In early 1982, Watermark was purchased by ABC Radio and AT40 became a program of the "ABC Contemporary Radio Network". The program was hosted by Casey Kasem and co-created by Kasem; Don Bustany; Tom Rounds; and legendary 93/KHJ Program Director Ron Jacobs, who produced and directed the various production elements. Rounds was also the marketing genius; the initial funder was California strawberry grower Tom Driscoll.
The show began as a three-hour program written and directed by Bustany, counting down the top 40 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. The show quickly gained popularity once it was commissioned, and expanded to a four hour-program on October 7, 1978, to reflect the increasing average length of singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The producing staff expanded to eight people, some of them still in the business: Nikki Wine, Ben Marichal, Scott Paton, Matt Wilson, Merrill Shindler, Guy Aoki, Ronnie Allen and Sandy Stert Benjamin. (Bustany retired from AT40 in 1989; since 1994, he has hosted a political talk show on listener-sponsored KPFK.) By the early 1980s, the show could be heard on 520 stations in the United States and around the world in 50 countries.
Although the show's format obviously implied an average of ten countdown songs per hour (once the show had gone to a four-hour format), this was not rigidly enforced; however, by the mid-1980s it had become increasingly rare for the final hour of the show to have any more than the top eleven or any fewer than the top nine songs left to play. The songs' run times determined how many would comfortably fit into each hour. The show bent to fit the Billboard rankings which, to many listeners, were sacred, and some songs had to be edited (in addition to whatever edits had been done for single release), with a verse and/or chorus chopped out, in order to fit into the show. But Casey and his producers never lost sight of the fact that the same music was being played on other stations everywhere, and that the stories behind the songs were the chief reason that listeners tuned to AT40.
In 1988, Kasem left the show over contract concerns with ABC. Industry trade paper Billboard magazine reported that the main disputes between Kasem and Watermark/ABC were over his salary, because of declining ratings and a smaller group of stations airing the show. Casey's final AT40 show aired on August 6, 1988. At no point during that final show did Kasem ever let on that any changes were afoot, and simply omitted the phrase "join me next week" while closing the show.
Kasem was replaced by Shadoe Stevens, whose first American Top 40 show aired on August 13, 1988, on 1,014 stations. Kasem joined the Westwood One radio network less than a year later to start a rival show, Casey's Top 40. Many AT40 listeners were upset by Kasem's departure and, as a result, many stations dropped American Top 40 in favor of Casey's Top 40 once it hit the airwaves on January 21, 1989. In an attempt to win back an audience, AT40 tried new show features, including interview clips, music news, top 5 flashbacks, and previews of upcoming chart hits (called the "AT40 Sneek Peek"). AT40 in its later Shadoe years frequently used a "No Nuttin'" gimmick, in which the number jingle was followed by the song, with no introduction by Shadoe; this tactic irked critics of the show.
Casey's Top 40 was based on the Contemporary Hit Radio/Pop tracks chart in Radio & Records magazine, which at the time was the same chart source as Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40. American Top 40 was briefly canceled in the USA on July 9, 1994, when then-owner ABC withdrew the show and acquired the rights to rival Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 (since headed back to ABC Radio/Citadel Media). AT40 ended up in the hands of Radio Express (its overseas distributors since the 1980s, founded by AT40 co-founder Tom Rounds), and was also canceled in the remaining foreign markets on January 28, 1995. These foreign markets replaced it with a similar format called The World Chart Show. American Top 40 was revived on March 28, 1998, when original host Casey Kasem pitched the idea to his network Westwood One to rename "Casey's Top 40" as "American Top 40", after getting the rights to the name from ABC, since Shadoe's AT40 had been off the air for over two years. Westwood One refused, so Kasem took himself and the AT40 name to AMFM Radio syndication (AMFM, once owned by Chancellor Media, was later absorbed into Premiere Radio Networks). The resurrected American Top 40 kept the Radio and Records CHR/Pop chart previously used for "Casey's Top 40" and was used as the basis for the show for the majority of this period. The only exception was a brief period from October 2000 to August 2001 when an obscure Mediabase chart was used. This chart had a rather ambiguous recurrent rule, which would see songs removed weekly from the chart from as high as #10.
As its title implies, AT40 counts down the forty most popular songs in the United States of America, from #40 to #1. The show used Billboard charts in its early years, touting it as "the only source" for the countdown; then, switched to those from Radio and Records upon its late 1990s return. The charts currently are based on data from Mediabase, and published in the Tuesday Edition of USA Today.
American Top 40 began on the Independence Day weekend in 1970, on seven radio stations, the very first being KDEO in El Cajon, California (now KECR), which broadcasted the inaugural show the evening of July 3, 1970. The chart data broadcast actually included the top 40 songs from the week ending July 11, 1970. The very first show featured the very last time both Elvis Presley and The Beatles had songs simultaneously in the Top 10. It was originally distributed by Watermark Inc., and was first presented in mono until it started recording in stereo in September 1972. In early 1982, Watermark was purchased by ABC Radio and AT40 became a program of the "ABC Contemporary Radio Network". The program was hosted by Casey Kasem and co-created by Kasem; Don Bustany; Tom Rounds; and legendary 93/KHJ Program Director Ron Jacobs, who produced and directed the various production elements. Rounds was also the marketing genius; the initial funder was California strawberry grower Tom Driscoll.
The show began as a three-hour program written and directed by Bustany, counting down the top 40 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. The show quickly gained popularity once it was commissioned, and expanded to a four hour-program on October 7, 1978, to reflect the increasing average length of singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The producing staff expanded to eight people, some of them still in the business: Nikki Wine, Ben Marichal, Scott Paton, Matt Wilson, Merrill Shindler, Guy Aoki, Ronnie Allen and Sandy Stert Benjamin. (Bustany retired from AT40 in 1989; since 1994, he has hosted a political talk show on listener-sponsored KPFK.) By the early 1980s, the show could be heard on 520 stations in the United States and around the world in 50 countries.
 rock |  Jules Belkin with Steven Tyler |  How HOT Was Steven Tyler in |  Steve Tyler spends $20 on |  Steven Tyler - Celebrity |
 Daily Kindling: Steven Tyler, |  Steven Tyler has been battling |  Steven Tyler was cool. |  Steven Tyler Enters Rehab for |  Steven Tyler |
Kasem was replaced by Shadoe Stevens, whose first American Top 40 show aired on August 13, 1988, on 1,014 stations. Kasem joined the Westwood One radio network less than a year later to start a rival show, Casey's Top 40. Many AT40 listeners were upset by Kasem's departure and, as a result, many stations dropped American Top 40 in favor of Casey's Top 40 once it hit the airwaves on January 21, 1989. In an attempt to win back an audience, AT40 tried new show features, including interview clips, music news, top 5 flashbacks, and previews of upcoming chart hits (called the "AT40 Sneek Peek"). AT40 in its later Shadoe years frequently used a "No Nuttin'" gimmick, in which the number jingle was followed by the song, with no introduction by Shadoe; this tactic irked critics of the show.
 steve-tyler-picture |  to whore themselves out to |  Steven Tyler: The Biography |  Seven Tyler Will Be Releasing |  Steven |
 bands of the \x26#39;70s, |  Rock legend Steven Tyler has |  Anyways, here\x26#39;s a Steven Tyler |  Chelsea Tyler, Steven Tyler |  Carly Simon and Steven Tyler |
No comments:
Post a Comment