American Top 40

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American Top 40 (commonly abbreviated to "AT40") is an independent internationally-syndicated radio program currently hosted by Ryan Seacrest. Each week, the 40 songs that have received the most number of requests on Mediabase's data and from affiliated stations are counted down backwards (from forty to one). The program currently airs in a number of countries including the United States, Canada, several European countries, Australia, and China.

American Top 40 Logo.

[edit] History

[edit] 1970-1988: First Casey Kasem Era

The show began on July 4, 1970, and was originally distributed by Watermark Inc. (which was later purchased by ABC Radio Networks). Hosted by Casey Kasem and co-created by Casey Kasem, Tom Rounds and legendary 93/KHJ Program Director Ron Jacobs, who produced and directed all production elements and the show pilot, the show began as a three hour program which counted down the top 40 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart in a three hour time slot. The show quickly gained popularity once it was commissioned, and expanded to a four hour program on October 7, 1978 when many radio stations began playing longer songs. By the early 1980s, the show could be heard on more than 500 stations in the United States alone.

[edit] Features of the Kasem-era shows

During Kasem's run as host, the AT40 show had a number of popular and distinguishing features:

Stretch stories: Most segments of the show included two countdown songs. Often Kasem would introduce the second song in the segment with a "stretch story" about the song and/or its recording artist.
"Number" jingles: Occasionally a song would be preceded by a brief audio clip of a group of singers announcing the song's position on the chart (e.g. "Number 40!"). This was especially common for the first song played in each hour of the show, but was usually not done for the #1 song (which was usually introduced with a drum roll), or for songs preceded by the aforementioned "stretch" stories. The "number" jingles were updated and re-recorded from time to time, and by the mid-1980s the show had begun using two sets of "number" jingles: the standard set, to be used with up-tempo songs; and a softer alternate set, usually used with low-key or romantic songs.
Chart trivia: AT40 also featured several question letters in each show, where a listener would write to ask a chart trivia question. Sometimes these letters led to an extra song being played, though this became less common as songs increased in length in the 1980s.
Long Distance Dedication: This feature had evolved from a song that Kasem had recorded in the mid 1960s. The LDD feature began two months before the show expanded to four hours in 1978. Most shows featured two long distance dedications, which were usually done during the first and third hours of the show. (Sometimes a song currently in the countdown would also be requested as a LDD; in such cases, Kasem would typically read the dedication first, and sometimes not even announce the song's chart status until after the song was played.) This feature endured on AT40 into Shadoe Stevens' run as host of the show and has also followed Casey (first as the "Request and Dedication") on his Westwood One shows and then back as the LDD when he returned to AT40 in 1998.
Top Three recaps: Beginning the weekend of February 24-25, 1979, a recap of the previous week's top three songs started off each AT40 episode. Originally all three songs would actually be played before the countdown began in earnest, but when time constraints became an issue, Kasem would simply announce the #3 and #2 songs and play only the #1 song, or just announce all three songs before beginning the current week's countdown. By the mid-1980s the abbreviated recaps had become the norm.
AT40 Archives: Also in 1978 after the show expanded to four hours, each of the first three hours ended with the "AT40 Archives" segment that featured a number one song of the past. From October 1978 to June 1980 the number one songs of the 1970s were featured in the "AT40 Archives", and from June 1980 to November 1981 the number one songs of the 1960s were featured. The "AT40 Archives" feature was gone by the end of November 1981.
Bumper music: The end of each hour's worth of programming would typically be indicated by an approximately one-minute-long piece of nondescript bumper music. Like the "number" jingles and the AT40 theme music, this would be updated and re-recorded occasionally, but its only distinguishing feature was the occasional use of the AT40 theme as a leitmotif. This bumper music was typically and often cut off before it ended by the local station carrying the program, usually to give the station identification before starting the next hour.
Sign-off: After the #1 song was played, Kasem would typically read the end credits, then sign off with what would become his, and the show's, unofficial motto: "Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars." In the early years of the show, he usually added "and keep your radio tuned right where it is".

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. It's unclear whether this was merely by happenstance, or due to a conscious effort by the show's producers to control the flow of the countdown.

[edit] 1988-1995: Shadoe Stevens Era

In 1988, Kasem left the show due to contract concerns with ABC. His final show aired on August 6, 1988. Interestingly, at no point during that final show did Kasem ever let on that any changes were afoot.

Kasem was replaced by Shadoe Stevens, whose first American Top 40 show aired on August 13, 1988. 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 in early 1989. In an attempt to win back an audience, several new show features were tried. These included interview clips, music news, top 5 flashbacks, and previews of upcoming chart hits (called the "AT40 Sneak Peek").

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 cancelled in the USA in July 1994, when then owner ABC withdrew the show and acquired the rights to rival Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. The show was also cancelled in the remaining foreign markets on January 28, 1995. These foreign markets replaced it with a similar format called The World Chart Show (which still airs today).

[edit] 1998-2003: American Top 40 Returns

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, after Shadoe's AT40 was off the air for three years. Westwood One refused, so Kasem took himself and the AT40 name to AM/FM Radio syndication.

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. Kasem also hosted two other shows, based on Radio & Records soft and hot adult contemporary charts at this time. Each of these shows were known as American Top 20 or AT20, for short.

The AC version of AT20 became American Top 10 in the spring of 2004 featuring the top 10 AC songs of the week and a "Spotlight" feature in which Kasem plays songs with a common theme. In December, AT10 focuses on Christmas Music due to the fact that many of its affiliates broadcast a holiday/Christmas music format around the holiday season.

[edit] 2004-present: Ryan Seacrest era

On January 10, 2004, Ryan Seacrest took over the hosting duties of American Top 40 from Kasem, although Kasem would continue to host American Top 20 and American Top 10. With the host change, American Top 40 underwent a makeover, using a new theme song and introducing several new features. These extras included playing the previous week's #1 song at the beginning of the show, a gossip section, an update on movies screening in cinemas, and other extras which are inducted on a regular basis: "AT40 Breakout", a song predicted to crack the chart within the next few weeks (formerly known as the "Out of The Box" hit) , "Request Line", a segment in which Ryan Seacrest will play a song requested by a listener, "Double Play", a former hit from the artist just played, and "AT40 Rewind", a hit song from the past decade or so.

The show also began using a new chart that used no recurrent rule. On the first show with Ryan Seacrest, this led to several older songs reappearing after having dropped off many weeks earlier. Over the long term, it meant songs could spend long runs for about a year on the chart even after they went to recurrent status on other published charts. "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down set a longevity record in 2004 for the show by lasting 50 weeks before finally falling off. In 2006, "Scars" by Papa Roach would go on to tie the record. American Top 40 also became more interactive, involving online song voting and e-mail. Recently the AT40 website was revamped and the online song voting was discontinued.

American Top 40 is currently produced and engineered by Claudine Cazian and Sal Cocio. There are two versions of American Top 40 with Ryan Seacrest. One for CHR/Pop stations and a version for Hot AC stations. The current AT40 incarnaion is heard on over 400 radio stations worldwide

[edit] Reairing of older shows

[edit] AT40 Flashback

From January 2001 to December 2002, many radio stations aired reruns of 1980-1988 episodes under the title American Top 40 Flashback. The show was syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. In its early weeks the shows were the original four hour format of an American Top 40 episode, but after the first month and a half the show was reduced to three hours. Although American Top 40 Flashback ceased in December 2002, radio station WMMX in Dayton, Ohio continues to carry American Top 40 Flashback on Saturday mornings.

Clear Channel Communications' Format Lab, an online music service, recently began streaming episodes of American Top 40 Flashback, usually themed to a particular week [1].

[edit] XM Satellite Radio

On August 4, 2006, XM Satellite Radio began replays of the original 1970s and 1980s AT40 shows with Casey Kasem that were digitally remastered by Shannon Lynn of Charis Music Group. The event began with a weekend long marathon of original shows, with AT40 then being added as a regular show on two of XM's Decades channels, "The 70s on 7" and "The 80s on 8".

XM "70's on 7" currently runs AT40 each Saturday at 12PM with an encore the following Wednesday at 10PM. Likewise, "80's on 8" runs AT40 each Sunday at 12PM with an encore the following Thursday at 10PM (all times Eastern). Most show dates roughly correspond to the current day and month of real time. (This was not always the case. During the first few months of AT40 on XM, only a limited number of episodes were ready to be run, and as a result their programming schedule tended to be more fluid and random than it is now. Sometimes each channel would even air two different episodes per week, one in each time slot.) The mix of AT40 episodes being run on XM include the year-end countdowns, which are typically run in two parts: the first half (#100-#51) in one time slot, and then the second half (#50-#1) in the following time slot. In at least one instance, XM has aired one of the AT40 specials; on February 24, 2007 XM 7 aired the 1978 special "AT40 Goes to the Movies" to coincide with the Academy Awards.

The AT40 flashbacks (combined with Opie and Anthony moving back to terrestrial radio) appear to have helped the two XM channels on which they run become the two most popular channels on the service.

[edit] Casey Kasem's American Top 40 - The 70's

From October through early November 2006, oldies radio station KQQL in Minneapolis/St. Paul, which is owned by Clear Channel Communications, ran a series of American Top 40 episodes from the 1970s. Aside from one week, when the station attempted to air a four-hour episode from 1979 in the three-hour timeslot, this test run was largely successful. Because of the success, Premiere Radio Networks decided to launch "Casey Kasem's American Top 40: The 1970s" into national syndication, making sure that all the episodes released were before the show expanded to four hours, from 1970 to 1978. KQQL was the first to sign on, airing programs beginning on December 30, 2006 (after the Christmas music hiatus). WBBG in Niles, Ohio and KQLL in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also owned by Clear Channel, picked up the show shortly thereafter. KQQL and WBBG air AT40 twice each weekend-- once on Saturday morning, and again on Sunday, while KQLL only airs it on Sunday morning. More stations are expected to sign on in the near future.

[edit] Chart data used by American Top 40

[edit] Billboard magazine

AT40 used the Top 40 portion of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart from the show's inception in 1970 to November 30, 1991. The chart was widely regarded as the industry standard in tracking the most popular songs in the country, and was thus a natural choice to be used. However, by the early 1990s, many songs would appear on the chart being fueled by single sales, and had received low airplay (several were very long, others were too controversial or risqué for mainstream airplay). These song would generally only be aired in brief snippets during the show.

Because of this, American Top 40 began using the Top 40 from the Billboard Radio Monitor chart. These songs generally scored much higher radio airplay, and some were not even released as singles (such as "Steel Bars" by Michael Bolton). During this time, a few songs made big debuts, including 2 that almost debuted in the #1 spot: "I'll Be There" by Mariah Carey, which entered American Top 40 at #4, and "Erotica" by Madonna, which entered at #2.

In January 1993 American Top 40 switched charts again, this time to the Billboard Top 40 Mainstream chart. This chart had more Top 40 Mainstream hits but fewer urban/dance/rap songs.

AT40 did not always use the official year-end chart from Billboard during the 25 years that they used their charts. In 1972, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994, AT40 complied their own year-end chart. These charts were very close to Billboards, but AT40 would go with a mid-December to early-December time period where Billboard's survey year varied from year to year. AT40 matched Billboard's number one song of the year every time except in 1977, 1984, 1990 and 1993.

[edit] Radio & Records magazine

With the show's revival in 1998, a new chart was implemented, the top 40 portion Radio and Records CHR/Pop top 50 chart. This would also be a first time a recurrent rule was used on the show, albeit indirectly. Songs that were below #25 and had exceeded 26 weeks in the top 50 were removed, and these removals, if they occurred in the top 40, would be reflected on the appropriate week's program. In 1999, the rule was modified to further restrict long chart runs. Songs falling below #20 with at least 20 weeks in the top 50 would now be removed.

On October 21, 2000 American Top 40 began using an unpublished chart on a weekly basis for the first time in its history. The chart seemed to be a variant of the CHR/Pop chart provided by Mediabase, the data provider to Radio & Records. The most noticeable feature of this new chart was its ambiguous recurrent rule. Songs would be removed regularly from within the top 15, seemingly regardless of the number of weeks it had spent on the chart. This chart lasted until August 11, 2001, when AT40 returned to the Radio & Records Pop chart. The return coincided with another modification in the recurrent rule; songs would be removed below #25 after 3 consecutive weeks without a bullet (an increase in radio plays). This change would be short-lived, and in November 2001, Radio & Records returned to the 20 weeks/below #20 rule, which remained in place for the remainder of Kasem's tenure.

[edit] Spin-Off Programming

Based on the success of American Top 40, Kasem and Don Bustany created a spinoff top 40 countdown for Watermark for Country Radio called American Country Countdown, patterned after Kasem's program. "ACC" premiered in 1973, and was hosted by radio personality Bob Kingsley from 1978 until 2005 when Kix Brooks of the Country Music Duo Brooks & Dunn took over, and has been doing so since. There was also a TV version of American Top 40 hosted by Kasem and later Siedah Garrett and Tommy Puett called America's Top 10 that aired in syndication from 1980 to 1992.

After Kasem left ABC, the network launched American Gold, a spinoff oldies countdown (featuring far fewer songs, but focusing on a particular band) hosted by Dick Bartley.

[edit] Special Countdowns

Occasionally, between 1971 and 1991, American Top 40 would air special countdowns in place of the regular American Top 40 countdown show. These included:

"The National Album Countdown" (1972)
"The Top 40 Disappearing Acts" (1973)
"The #1 July 4 Songs of the Last 40 Years" (1976)
"AT40 Goes to the Movies" (1978)
"The Top 40 Disco Songs" (1979)
"The Top 50 Songs of the 1970s" (1980)
"The AT40 Book of Records" (1980)
"The Top 40 Acts of the 1980s So Far" (1987)
"The Triathlon of Rock 'n Roll" (1988)

Additionally, the top songs of the year were counted down at the end of every year. In 1970 & 1972, AT40 counted down the year's top 80 hits. In 1971 & 1973, they only counted down the top 40 because of their top 40 Christmas Countdowns those two years. Beginning in 1974, the top 100 songs of the year were counted down and was done so every year with few exceptions. In 1979, they did the top 50 songs of that year and followed it with the top 50 songs of the 1970s. This was done again in 1999, except only the top 40 of the year and decade were aired. The year-end shows were counted down over a two week period (although stations could edit the shows into one long show) until 1983, when the year-end show ran just one week for eight hours and stayed that way. In 1998, the show went back to its two-week format, which it has stayed to this day.

[edit] Substitute Hosts

A new show must be produced every week, meaning that occasionally a substitute host must fill in. Substitutes for Ryan Seacrest have included:

Some well-known guest hosts for Casey Kasem have included:

Ryan Seacrest
Charlie Van Dyke
Marc Elliot
Ed McMann
David Perry
"Humble Harv" Miller
Dave Hull
Bob Eubanks
Keri Tombazian
Dick Clark
Al Mitchell
Dave Roberts
Joe Cipriano (the only voice to fill in for both Casey Kasem and Shadoe Stevens)
Bumper Morgan
Robert W. Morgan
Gary Owens
Sonny Melendez
Hall and Oates
Pat O'Brien
Charlie Tuna
John Ondrasik (aka, Five for Fighting)

Shadoe Stevens' guest hosts for his American Top 40 reign included:

Debbie Gibson
Donny Osmond
Matthew and Gunnar Nelson
Richard Marx
Jody Watley
Martha Quinn
Harry Anderson
Meshach Taylor
Joe Cipriano (the only voice to fill in for both Casey Kasem and Shadoe Stevens)
Adrienne Walker

[edit] Trivia

The first song played on the first American Top 40 in 1970 at #40 was "The End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. It would remain and peak at #40 for the second American Top 40 show.
The first #1 song on American Top 40 in 1970 was "Mama Told Me Not to Come" by Three Dog Night.
The first top 10 countdown on the first American Top 40 featured songs by both Elvis Presley ("The Wonder Of You") and The Beatles ("The Long And Winding Road"). These are the top two artists of the entire rock era according to AT40's original source, "Billboard" Magazine.
When American Top 40 expanded from three to four hours in October 1978, the #1 song was "Kiss You All Over" by Exile.
When Shadoe Stevens replaced Casey Kasem as American Top 40 host in August 1988, the #1 song was "Roll With It" by Steve Winwood.
The last #1 song on American Top 40 in January 1995 before its 3-year hiatus was "On Bended Knee" by Boyz II Men.
Also on the last before hiatus American Top 40 episode in January 1995, host Shadoe Stevens played before the #1 song a special Long Distance Dedication to his fans: A song by James Brown titled "So Tired of Standing Still, We Got to Move On". And as Shadoe Stevens did his closing at the end of the show, the song "Happy Trails" by Roy Rogers was played in the background.
When American Top 40 returned in March 1998, the #1 song was "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion.
The #1 song on Casey Kasem's final AT40 show in January 2004 was "Hey Ya" by Outkast. It stayed at number one when Ryan Seacrest replaced Kasem.
The song that spent the most weeks at #1 on American Top 40 was "The Sign" by Ace of Base which spent 14 weeks at the #1 spot in 1994. The song that spent the most weeks at #1 after Ryan Seacrest replaced Kasem was "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey, spending 12 weeks, from July to September, 2005.
Two songs spent 50 weeks on American Top 40 after Ryan Seacrest took over: "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down in 2004, and "Scars" by Papa Roach in 2005-2006. Also, two songs spent 46 weeks in the chart: "You and Me" by Lifehouse in 2005/2006, and "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson in 2004/2005.
Rick Dees had the #1 song "Disco Duck" on American Top 40 in 1976 long before Rick would launch his American Top 40 rival Rick Dees Weekly Top 40.
Guest hosts Dick Clark and Marc Elliot once had countdown shows of their own. Clark was host for Dick Clark's National Music Survey (1981 to 1985) and Countdown America (1985 to mid-1990s, replacing original host John Leader). Elliot's show was Weekly Top 30, which ran from 1979-82 and eventually morphed into the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, which still airs as of 2006.
On the weekend of July 7-8, 1979, Cleveland, Ohio American Top 40 affiliate WGCL instead of carrying the "American Top 40 Top 40 Disco Songs" special because of being an anti-disco radio station, did its own version of American Top 40 using the July 7, 1979 Billboard chart as the source with Townsend Coleman handling the American Top 40 duties for Casey Kasem. The special Cleveland only American Top 40 episode did not feature the AT40 Archives or extras or Long Distance Dedications, just the previous week's Top 3 recap and the top 40 songs of the week, with most of the songs played longer album versions or 12 inch extended versions (such as a 12 inch disco medley of "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer, who was occupying the #3 and #2 spots on the Billboard chart for that week respectively).
When George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" hit the Billboard charts in the summer of 1987, Kasem refused to announce the name of the song; only its artist. Also, due to the song's suggestiveness, the show's structure was altered slightly, so stations could opt out of the song. This pattern was also evident during the 1987 Year End countdown. The only time the title of the song was announced on AT40 was during the week-ending episode of September 26, 1987, when it dropped out of the Top 40.
From 1992 to 1994 two radio stations still carrying Shadoe Stevens American Top 40 had to carry customised versions of the show: WPLJ in New York City aired American Top 40 with the urban/dance/rap songs mentioned but not played and were replaced here and there by Hot AC leaning extras, and KUBE in Seattle, Washington aired American Top 40 with a few songs that did not fit the station's Top 40 Rhythm format omitted each week.
Beginning in October 2005, New York City radio station WLTW began to air a customized 1 hour American Top 10 featuring only the Top 10 AC songs plus the weekly Long Distance Dedication, but not the usual show's extras or spotlight songs.
Casey Kasem's longest hosting streak without a substitute lasted 85 weeks - from the weekend of February 21, 2004 to October 1, 2005. The weekend of October 8, 2005 featured radio vetran Charlie Tuna as guest host. Tuna filled in for Kasem again in August 2006.
While recording an episode of the show in 1985, Kasem was aghast to discover he would have to read a Long Distance Dedication to a listener's dead dog, immediately following an upbeat song in the countdown. He went ballistic, berating the show's writers and producers over the poor segue in a profanity-laced tirade completely at odds with Kasem's normally straight-laced, easygoing on-air persona. Although the incident obviously was not aired (and the misplaced dedication was presented as scripted), it would eventually surface as a bootleg outtake and provide an amusing footnote to Kasem's original run as AT40 host.
Since returning to the air in 1998, Christina Aguilera is the artist with the most top ten hits inside the Top 40 countdown, with her total currently at 11.

[edit] Number-one songs

[edit] Further reading

Durkee, Rob. "American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century." Schriner Books, New York City, 1999.
Battistini, Pete, "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem The 1970s." Authorhouse.com, January 31, 2005. ISBN 1-4184-1070-5.

[edit] External links

American Top 40 official website
Sample MP3 clip from American Top 40
AT40 fun and games site - features a lot of info, including a list of Long Distance Dedications
Charis Music Group The Restoration Authority on American Top 40 for Premiere Radio and Clear Channel Communications. Site also features a lot of information on other countdown shows and syndicated programs
AT40 with Casey and Shadoe - Learn more about the history of the show as well as see pictures and scans of AT40 cue sheets, memos, and more.
Listen to American Top 40 online - The list of radio stations carrying American Top 40, with scheduled times and streaming links.

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