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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 9:29:27 GMT -5
I just sat chuckling and shaking my head at the LDD from this week in 94. It was from someone in The Plains, Ohio! Now, I understand if an affiliate dropped the show and you weren't notified in time, but this is amazing and again shows the level of incompetence the people in charge of running and producing the show had then. Why the heck would you air a dedication from somewhere YOU KNOW is no longer getting the show?! I mean really, no one in this country was getting it or shouldn't have been anyway. This wasn't the first time post-June they did this either. It's clear no one seemed to have anything together at ABC/Radio Express who was showing any leadership whatsoever. Even Shadoe who was told to stop saying "friend in the void" says it pretty much every week now.
I've often wondered if it's ABC's stupidity that got AT40 back at all. I truly think it's plausible no one realized the original deal said if you don't use anything related to AT40 for 3 years it reverts back to the original owners. And then 3 years passed and they realized it was too late once it happened.
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Post by pointpark04 on Aug 28, 2014 9:44:58 GMT -5
Overall, after learning what I have over the past few years about AT40 post-Casey, I think the show should have ended when he left, because it was a slow, downhill decline for the show from there. I love Shadoe Stevens. I think he's funny, has a great voice, and is an all-around good person. I just think the powers that were behind AT40 never had full trust or commitment to Shadoe. If you listen to his earlier shows, then progress throughout his era to the end, you'll note how much they made him change so much of what he did and said - or didn't say, as we know many times songs were played without an intro from Stevens. Remember - he used to say "The eerie grin of the Shadoe", which I loved, but was dropped early in his tenure. Because, little kiddies, who wants to see an eerie grin of a Shadoe?
In short: Incompetence, indecision, ineptness.
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Post by matt on Aug 28, 2014 10:59:25 GMT -5
Right--the post-Casey AT40 never had a chance. The fact that so many subscribing stations dropped the show in 1988 because Casey wasn't retained meant that the new show with Shadoe was going to have to woo back much of its audience...and how was that going to happen when Casey was allowed to start his own competing show?
It begs the question: how was the most popular syndicated radio show in history allowed to decline as it did? As Bustany said: complete and total mismanagement.
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Post by mkarns on Aug 28, 2014 11:00:47 GMT -5
I just sat chuckling and shaking my head at the LDD from this week in 94. It was from someone in The Plains, Ohio! Now, I understand if an affiliate dropped the show and you weren't notified in time, but this is amazing and again shows the level of incompetence the people in charge of running and producing the show had then. Why the heck would you air a dedication from somewhere YOU KNOW is no longer getting the show?! I mean really, no one in this country was getting it or shouldn't have been anyway. This wasn't the first time post-June they did this either. It's clear no one seemed to have anything together at ABC/Radio Express who was showing any leadership whatsoever. Even Shadoe who was told to stop saying "friend in the void" says it pretty much every week now. I've often wondered if it's ABC's stupidity that got AT40 back at all. I truly think it's plausible no one realized the original deal said if you don't use anything related to AT40 for 3 years it reverts back to the original owners. And then 3 years passed and they realized it was too late once it happened. I'd hope that at least they sent a CD copy of the show to the letter writer who couldn't hear it over the air anymore. As for resurrecting AT40, it was probably in large part a combination of miscues from ABC/Radio Express and Westwood One. The former for either not knowing that after three years of nothing AT40-related control would pass back to Casey Kasem and Don Bustany, or assuming that they would never attempt to revive it; and then WW1 for apparently botching negotiations with Casey for continuance of his shows, allowing him to decamp for AMFM (now Premiere) and resurrect the old title. |
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Post by matt on Aug 28, 2014 11:08:07 GMT -5
As for resurrecting AT40, it was probably in large part a combination of miscues from ABC/Radio Express and Westwood One. The former for either not knowing that after three years of nothing AT40-related control would pass back to Casey Kasem and Don Bustany, or assuming that they would never attempt to revive it; and then WW1 for apparently botching negotiations with Casey for continuance of his shows, allowing him to decamp for AMFM (now Premiere) and resurrect the old title. I've often wondered what the real story is behind WW1 not being more receptive to Casey's request to revive the American Top 40 brand. You would think that since they lured him away from ABC and had a good thing going with the Casey's Top 40/Casey's Hot 20/Casey's Countdowns, they would have worked with him on that. Strange to me... |
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Post by pointpark04 on Aug 28, 2014 11:31:14 GMT -5
We like to think and we're constantly told that people in business are the smartest people in the room.
Come on - we went to school with these people. They weren't smart then, and they aren't smart just because they took some faux major like business.
Don't try too hard to figure out the motives of businesspeople. You'll either go crazy or get as dirty as them down there in the sewer. Or both.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 11:50:26 GMT -5
Ok first, there is no reason AT40 should have ended in 88. Even in hindsight 26 years later it shouldn't have. It was still the most listened to show in the world at that time and even with them tinkering with Shadoe, I've said this before and I'll say it until the day I die. And if Jesus asks me in heaven, I'll tell him AT40 was still the best show on the radio until mid 91 or into 92 when everything seemed to go to hell.
Second, I never think anyone is smarter than others because of their positions. I believe they have more information and learned more to get to where they are and can make more informed decisions. But in the case of AT40, there was no stopping it's demise once top 40 fragmented so much. They'd pissed stations off years ago with their requirements of carrying things no one wanted to carry and so ABC yanked AT40 from them giving way to Dees's show being created. And then you had a choice, Casey Kasem or this over produced mess from ABC that had become a shell of itself. Pretty sure it was obvious Casey was winning that battle too. I don't think anyone working there cared much because they knew it was just a matter of time before it was axed. But I still think it isn't hard to reach into the mailbag and get an LDD from a foreign land if nothing else. I'm not asking them to research who had the most #1s on a week when the average world temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now, have you all ever thought about something I alluded to above? ABC's stupidity is why both main competitors who wound up putting them under were even created. They truly were the author of their own demise.
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Post by dukelightning on Aug 28, 2014 13:00:05 GMT -5
I wonder if AT40 in later 1994 was including the LDDs from US addreses to give the foreigners that were the only listeners at that point the illusion that AT40 was being broadcast in the US. Of course, the devil's advocate position to that is hearing Shadoe ID stations and he rattles off 5 stations....all from outside the US. That sounded really strange when I heard the 8/13/94 show a couple weeks back. Strange but accurate of course!
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Post by Mike on Aug 28, 2014 15:38:44 GMT -5
Consider this. The contract with foreign affiliates ran through the end of January 1995. Suppose ABC had already long since decided that that was going to be it? Considering they'd already axed the show in the States in favor of running with Dees...I'm inclined to think that that was the case.
And with that being true - things like these LDDs in the show would be, dare I say...tiny details at best, in their minds, that very likely wouldn't even have been on their radar. Basically, they'd have been bound to keep the show going for as long as it ultimately did - and that's it. Quality? What would be the point for a show with a pending expiration date?
And as for allowing the rights to lapse...well, again considering they'd axed the show in favor of Dees, it wouldn't surprise me if they simply didn't care about anything to do with AT40 once their other obligations to it were finished.
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