Celebrating 40 years of American Top 40 (audio)

Casey Kasem

This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of American Top 40 - the most famous countdown show in radio history.  As part of the special anniversary weekend, AT40 host Ryan Seacrest will commemorate the milestone with a tribute to Casey Kasem, as well as announce the top artist of the last 40 years. In this RBR-TVBR special report, we interview AT40 originator Tom Rounds and welcomed memories and commentary from radio pros that carried the show from way back.

AT40 was actually a concept that came out of a time when Rock and Roll was becoming a topic for journalists, including Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone (Rounds is on the cover of the first edition) and Pete Johnson and Ron Jacobs at KHJ, Los Angeles.  They were the team that created the first, enormously successful “History of Rock and Roll.”  This mega-production, intended to run for an entire weekend, was soon after syndicated by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault.

At Watermark (another story that came of the Miami Pop Festival and its backer Tom Driscoll, the "strawberry king"), the idea of a radio show based on the Billboard Chart and loaded with Horatio Alger success stories and plenty of Ripley's "Believe It Or Not"-type material spun out by the master of "the tease,”  Casey Kasem, made sense to Rounds -- and played a part in his getting Jacobs to leave KHJ and join the strawberry-financed entrepreneurs at Watermark, which grew to include radio syndication, a record label, talent management (Seals and Crofts), publishing and more pop festivals and concerts. 

Jacobs left in 1971 to build a house on Maui, and then to San Diego where he took on KGB. 

Although Casey is rightly synonymous with "American Top 40" he did not host the show consistently for 40 years.  Shadoe Stevens took over in 1987 when Casey decamped to Westwood One (to do "Casey's Countdown").  At some point in the late 90's Casey came back to AT40 and was distributed by AMFM Networks, which was eventually acquired by Premiere and Clear Channel.  When Ryan Seacrest took over the American Top 40 brand in January, 2004, Casey reverted to a Hot AC and Soft AC version.  As we all know he "retired" (not a good term for him) last June, 2009. 

Listen here to two clips from the very first show -- one is the program opening and the other is the closing.

Today, AT40 continues to be the number one countdown show in the U.S. and can be heard on some 500 stations worldwide. In the Adults 18-34 demo, AT40 ranks #1 in several markets including: New York, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, DC, Boston and Detroit. (Source: Arbitron, PPM, WI’10 Jan-Mar, Exact Times, Cume).  Advertisers include StubHub!, FOX Broadcasting, Netflix, GM OnStar, WalMart, E! Entertainment, Progressive Insurance and others. 

Here, we asked Tom Rounds about it all:

Tell us the story of how you got AT40 off the ground.
American Top 40 was one of several projects launched by Watermark with financial backing from our Miami Pop Festival angel, Tom Driscoll.   Once I got Ron Jacobs to cut himself loose from KHJ, we found ourselves with a record label, music publishing company, concert promotion, talent management (Seals and Crofts) and a production deal for “The Cruisin’ Series.”  The show didn’t become “iconic” nor Casey “legendary” for years. 

How did Casey Kasem come into the picture?
Casey, who was mid-days at KRLA, and considering devoting himself full-time to acting and voice-overs, was in touch with Ron, PD at KHJ.  Casey had toyed with a few entrepreneurial ideas on his own, and saw a business in doing a national chart show reminiscent of TV and radio’s “Your (Lucky Strike) Hit Parade.  Jacobs called me one night, and said “here’s a good one.”  We met with Casey and his partner Don Bustany the very next day, and a deal was struck.  Jacobs went to Dallas to cut jingles and a theme.  I designed a format, worked out distribution (7 1/2ips tape on 10” reels) and got a studio built.  And we all collaborated on a deal with Billboard to score the exclusive rights to their singles chart.

What was the business plan?
Art Astor, who we also stole from KHJ (and who is still running radio stations in his mid-80’s), had sold “The History of Rock and Roll” to GM/Chevrolet.  We cleared our first stations on a barter basis thinking that national advertisers would buy the commercial inventory generated by this weekly “History.” And we gambled on Bill Drake’s “getting” the concept and giving us the 7 RKO general markets (NY, LA, Boston, etc.)  He didn’t “get it.”

When did the advertisers arrive?
They didn’t.  Except for Mike Curb, who was buying spots in AT40 to break the Osmonds, and who was a close friend of Casey, we couldn’t figure out how to sell it, and Madison Avenue didn’t know how to buy it.  By mid 1971, we were burning Driscoll’s money at a fast rate.  Art Astor left for Orange County to buy stations and, a year later, Jacobs to Maui to build a house, thence to San Diego where he constructed the legendary KGB.

Was mass-appeal radio receptive at all?
Thank goodness for Mac Richmond, a group owner, who delivered Boston (WMEX), DC (WPGC) and Las Vegas and our old buddies in Honolulu, San Bernardino and Fresno plus a station in Kansas City for our original 7-station mega-lineup.   Radio in 1970 was passionately local and self-sufficient.  When I was at KFRC, I would have turned me down flat.

What was the radio picture in 1970?
AM.  Mono.  Top 40, which by its definition resisted “genrefication”, was playing Jackson 5, Creedence, Elvis, CSNY, Simon & Garfunkle.  The #1 song of the year was “Spirit in the Sky” by Normal Greenbaum.  The Vietnam War and The Draft generated massive social protest.  Pop songs were relevant, and they all seemed to have a double meaning.   We sensed that there was a lack of context and order that the audience wanted. 

When did AT40 turn the corner?
In 1971, we made two money-saving moves, gladly exiting the nightmare of tape by switching to vinyl,  delaying delivery by a week and charging the stations a modest cash license fee…generally $39/week for all but the biggest markets.  (That basic fee went up to $52 when we added a 4th hour.)  By the end of that year we were up to about 75 markets including, at last, L.A. when Casey settled a dispute with KRLA, delivering our first Top 10 market.

But it wasn’t until Program Directors began to discover that Arbitron diary keepers were writing in “Casey Kasem” and “American Top 40” that business picked up exponentially. 

The fact that we were still operating AT40 and American Country Countdown as a cash business in 1982, made the show, and the company such an inviting opportunity for Ed McLaughlin at ABC. 

In the beginning, how did you get stations to take the show?
We sold management on the idea of upgrading their weekend programming by replacing local staff with high quality programming that they could package and sell locally for about the same cost as live talent. 

In 1971, with most of the original Driscoll money spent (it took me 10 years to pay him back the $1 million Watermark startup cost) I hit the road, starting in “The Show Me State” Missouri.  We added St. Joseph (programmed by Dave Scott), Cape Girardeau (dirt floors in the transmitter shack), Rolla, Jefferson City and Joplin.  From then on, realizing that they money was in small markets I travelled to 25 states over 3 years until we could afford real sales people.

Radio Pros on AT40
We asked: What did it mean back in the 70’s and early 80’s to have the show in audience, ad sales, etc. and how do syndicated music-intensive shows differ today in general vs. back in the day? Here are memories and comments from:




Randy Michaels, Tribune CEO:
There was no syndication like AT40 in the 70’s.  It did killer numbers, and it had killer demos too.  AT40 spiked the 25-54 audience, so much so that some full service AC stations, like WHAS and WLW, ran the show in the 80’s.  For those stations AT40 was a weekly primer on pop culture for an audience that may not have listened to Top 40 full time but wanted to stay plugged in.   As you know you could drive anywhere in the country and find AT40 on several stations on both bands.  

The format and the host made that show a hit.   It wasn’t just the music, but Casey’s voice and delivery, great writing, and excellent formatics that made the show special.  Every segment ended with a promotion for the next segment.  These were well written and the show delivered on every setup, although not right away.  The long distance dedication may have been corny, but it gave the shows an emotional element and a high touch feel that made the show seem “live”.

There hasn’t been a countdown show before or since that captured the magic AT40 delivered.

Burt Sherwood, Burt Sherwood & Associates, Inc.:
In all the markets that I managed top 40 stations, I never was able to have American Top 40.  Tommy Rounds was a friend of mine and by the time we got to the marketplace our competitor had it on the air. 

In New Haven, Bill Hennes and I got involved with "boss radio" and Bill Drake…and he dealt with the hits of yesterday.  Bear in mind, in my early operating days, there were no oldies stations. We played the "greatest hits of all time"  (The History of Rock and Roll) when we did Drake's number on several weekends a year -- particularly on Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving etc. This syndicated show gave our jocks time to see family, and our part timers ran the tapes.
 
Back to Tommy...he needed money from each station, and IF I wanted his show (which usually someone had before our arrival) I could not afford it budget wise.  When we did the Drake show, we always sold it out (as I recall Gene Chenault cleverly packaged the show in his agreement with us)....but American Top 40 with Tom Rounds was a strong show that certainly continued for a long time.

Why would a station in those days and perhaps today, use a show like American Top 40? It gave the station a marketing tool to both the public and the advertisers. The fact that a guru of the industry was on a local station (which usually had no network) made the station sound “special or big time.” I am sure it gave our competitor something special to promote and sell -- just at the History of Rock and Roll did for us.  The radio "war" for ears continues today. In my Top 40 days it kept us on our toes in Portland, ME, Albany, NY, New Haven, CT, Ft. Wayne, IN, and Philadelphia.  You had to love combat to exist and TR's show was always "across the street" -- and darn it...it did well, and it is a shame that they dropped Casey Kasem...he was fabulous!


Chuck DuCoty, COO, NRG Media:
I spent all of the 70’s and 80’s working AOR radio so we never carried AT 40, just tried to make fun of Casey.  Having said that, I can’t think of a more iconic radio show or personality than American Top 40 and Casey Kasem was America in those two decades.  Being based in Baltimore I spent a lot of time at Arbitron inspecting diaries for our stations and other stations that Hearst owned at the time.  The number one personality written in diaries everywhere was easily Casey and AT40.  If you’ve ever looked at diaries it’s somewhat disheartening for radio personalities to discover how infrequently their names are written.  Not the case with AT40 and Casey.  In the days before the Internet and social networking I’m guessing American teens learned more about the pop stars they idolized from Casey Kasem than anyplace else. 


Mel Phillips, who PD’ed at WOR-FM (WXLO), WRKO and KQV. Mel also jocked in Nashville, Tampa, Norfolk, Atlantic City, etc.:
The original AT40 was great because it contained real top 40 music with no variations for format. It later got watered down to cater to different formats, including every version of A/C imaginable. I loved Casey Kasem and his corny stories which added flavor to the countdown. AT40 later became fairly colorless even though it was done by one of my former WRKO disc jockeys, Shadoe Stevens who had bigger pipes than the Radio City Music Hall organ. When I worked for Dick Clark, clearing his countdown show, the hardest job I had was not clearing the show but keeping track of how many different versions he had to do. As far as sales and ratings for AT40 over the years, let's remember that radio put those shows on Sunday morning.


Bill Cloutier, Strategic Consultant:
When I took over KPOP (in LA) in January 1984 we became the 3rd CHR in the market. While I was confident that we could be a dominant player, I knew we had to bring our best game. I called Darryl Brown at ABC and he said we could have AT40 if we affiliated with ABC Contemporary -- and clear 168 units a week....yikes! Nonetheless, having AT40 was important enough that the PD and I agreed it was worth the pain. The show did make KPOP #1 A 18-34 on Sunday mornings and Doctor Ruth gave us the same position on Sunday nights, both of which added immensely to the all important albeit meaningless 12+ Total Week share.

AT40 was unique back in the day; today there is a plethora of countdown shows. Because the audience can now consume entertainment on demand, I think the countdown format has become, like so much current radio programming, passé.




John Gehron, former RVP/Market Manager for Clear Channel Chicago; former General Manager of Harpo Radio and current President of Broadcast Wisdom:
AT40 with Casey had a big brand awareness. The show was a ratings and sales success. During its day it was the only show with national awareness and for many years had the category to itself. Music was also more important in the 60's and 70's because of the population size of the boomers and this intensified its importance. AT40 was on all the big stations at the time and had tremendous exposure.

--Carl Marcucci

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