Dick Clark National Music Survey

[jedijake]

I had a question about the Dick Clark National Music Survey from the 80's. I remember listening to the show in late 1983 up until the middle 80's. However, I realize that the show started in 1981 and used Cashbox.

Does anyone know a little of the history of the show? When did it actually begin and when did it go from Cashbox to Radio and Records? I can't find much detail about it online.

Thanks!

[mrjukebox]

I remember listening to the "National Music Survey" back in the day-While I'm a fan of Dick Clark,he should've stuck to hosting "American Bandstand". Eventually,"National Music Survey" became "Countdown America". A local station in Connecticut ran it in the mid-80's.

[shadster]

Actually I believe NMS just simply ended and/or Clark left the show so that he could start hosting COuntdown America which had just lost ITS host "John Leader" in 86. or as of '86

[snarfdude]

here's something that might help from the united stations.com website:

In 1981, American pop icon, Dick Clark, joined with Nick Verbitsky, Chief Operating Officer at Mutual Radio, to form United Stations. The new company's first show was Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember (still on the air more than two decades later!). From that beginning, United Stations grew in a span of only 12 years to become one of the country's top three radio networks. Growth was achieved through a combination of astute management, intimate knowledge of the network radio business, strategic acquisitions and a great deal of sweat equity.

Several key events contributed to United Stations’ early success. In 1985, United Stations acquired the RKO Radio Networks, a once proud name that had fallen on hard times. In short order, the deluge of red ink was halted and a substantially bigger and stronger company remained.

In 1987, United Stations entered into an advertising sales and marketing alliance with Transtar Radio Networks. This alliance worked so well that in 1989 the two companies merged. The new entity became known as Unistar Communications. Nick Verbitsky remained as the CEO.

In 1993, Unistar merged with the Westwood One Radio Network.

In 1994, Dick Clark and Nick Verbitsky decided to do it all over again. They took the United Stations name out of mothballs to form the United Stations Radio Networks. The first move for the new company was the purchase of DB Communications, a radio comedy services company with five programs and services on the air. By the end of 1994, a lineup of weekend programming was introduced including two of Dick Clark's existing radio programs along with the company’s first Rock, Country and Urban shows.

so, John Leader was the original host of countdown america, and dick assumed duties when the company took over RKO property. NMS continued under the mutual/westwood one banner as late as 1987 under new hosts. i've seen shows on ebay that late at least. One can only assume westwood one halted production at some poiint.

locallly, stations have run rock, roll and remember, NMS and countdown america. I have some vinyl of all 3. 2 stations even ran RRR and CA at the same time on saturday night at one point. kinda funny flipping the dial and hear dick that way.

[jedijake]

Thank you for all of the information. I know it is hard to access online because there really isn't much information about old, more obscure shows like NMS (even though it was hosted by the legendary Dick Clark) and Countdown America (hosted by the lesser known John Leader, whose voice is very well known). Interestingly, John Leader did a LOT of voice overs for movie promos and sponsor id's for Survivor until the latest season.

Anyway, here's what I found either online or from my own recollection.

I listened to the first Dick Clark countdown in the summer of 1983. I had no concept of any other publication other than Billboard. However, the 1983 end-of-year countdown that Dick Clark used was definitely from Radio and Records.

So, as it turned out, Dick Clark's NMS used Cashbox from 1981 until the end of 1982. Then, in 1983, he began using Radio and Records.

In 1983, Countdown America began and was hosted by John Leader. He did that countdown until 1987. Dick Clark then took over and the show actually had the style of the National Music Survey. There were no more end-of-year montages like John Leader had for the 87 of 1987, 86 of 1986, etc. Dick Clark's year-ends were still only 30 like his old show was.

While Countdown America was handed to Dick Clark, another countdown began which was VERY similar to John Leader's Countdown America. It was called Countdown USA and was hosted by Dave Sholin. It lasted from 1988 until 1990.

As far as I know, when Dick Clark took over the Countdown America show, it quickly went to an AC format. I never heard the new countdown that Dick Clark did. I don't supposed there are any copies or playlists around?

[snarfdude]

I beg to differ for John Leader hosting Countdown America until 1987. I have 2 countdown america shows from 1986, may 10th and 24th, both of which are hosted by Dick Clark. and the jingle package states that "..with dick clark" so he wasn't filling in. I have one from 1988 and on CD from 1991 (saved from a station's trash pile) which also was dick, likely the AC versions, the 1986 episodes, state from Radio and Records charts, not Cashbox.

Countdown USA I remember being sold in collector circles. I never got into many countdowns as they are so dated, but have a small AT40 collection from the mid 80's when I new a station PD I could get them from, and have other radio specials and such....most of which are saved from the trash because I had the foresight of deciding to keep them. I pick the occasional oddity on ebay when it's cheap of late, but most of my stuff I got for nothing....

I always loved the jingle package for countdown america....and to a lesser degree NMS. I'd love to find a set of discs with the jingle bed on one side, as they occasionally did that for station production. AT40 did that too, but it was so inconsistent, it was like a needle in a haystack to find.

[Jeffster]

Slight additions/corrections to the above:

Dick Clark took over Countdown America in late 1985 (December maybe?) I know for sure he was hosting by March 1986, because I have a show from then. The show remained a top 40/pop show until the July 4th weekend of 1986, at which point it switched to using Radio & Records' AC chart, with no mention or explanation from Dick. In fact, he opened the show as he had been doing, with the previous week's #1 song, but the song played on that first AC show was the previous week's AC #1 and not the song that was actually heard at #1 on Countdown America the week before.

Countdown America with Dick Clark remained a 4-hour show, but as the R&R AC chart had only 30 positions, it was only a top 30, with additional "flashback" features added in addition to the "spotlight" artist segments he had already been doing on the pop show.

In 1991, the show was shrunk to a 3-hour show, but also reduced to just a top 20, still playing the extra segments to fill time rather than the whole top 30 chart.

At the end of 1994/beginning of 95, the show's name changed to Dick Clark's US Music Survey. It remained a top 20 show, but a few features were tweaked, as Dick stopped playing the previous week's #1 song to begin the show, and the flashback segments stopped focusing on one particular year, but instead would highlight one song that was on the chart (usually a debut, but not always) from 9 years ago, 6 years ago, 3 years ago, and 1 year ago. (Later on, that would change to playing songs from as much as 15 years prior to that week.) Also, a feature was added just prior to the #1 song called "US Music Survey Preview" in which Dick would play a song that debuted in the top 30 that week (usually the highest debut, but not always) but had not made the top 20 yet.

Dick Clark's US Music Survey continued until the end of 2005 I believe (it was 2004 when Dick had the stroke, right?) but the final show he actually hosted was before that in November or December of 04, and the final year of the show had guest hosts, and was dropped from most of its affiliates way before then when it became clear that Dick would not ever be returning to host the show.

Rock, Roll & Remember continues to air re-run shows, which really works just fine, since it's all oldies anyway, it's very rare that Dick mentions anything specific to the time the show was recorded, other than the copyright date at the end.

Dick Clark was the very first countdown show host I ever heard, as Countdown America was the first countdown I discovered, early in 1989 on Star 92 here in Bryan/College Station, Texas. He'll always have in place in my heart for that, in addition to knowing him from his game show hosting, new year's eve show, and Bloopers & Practical Jokes with Ed McMahon. To this day, Dick is still my 2nd favorite countdown show host, behind only Shadoe Stevens.

[jedijake]

Actually, I do remember Dick Clark counting down a new show after NMS.

But John Leader did countdown the hits in 1986 and 1987. I remember for the year-end countdowns, he had a montage of all the hits up until #2 and had the 1986 and 1987 ones recorded.

It actually may have been the original Countdown USA with John Leader. I always thought the way they tossed the shows around were weird back then.

So maybe after Dick Clark took over Countdown America, John Leader's show changed the name to Countdown USA. Then, Dave Sholin took over the healm of Countdown USA after Leader left to do movie and TV promos.

I lost Clark's countdown soon after the switchover. I remember listening to the NMS top 30 while living on Long Island. (96 WPIX???). I was very distraught when it left that station in early 1984. I was ecstatic when I went to Massachusetts to our summer house and picked it up again on a station in Pittsfield. However, I noticed that it had changed its name. I couldn't keep up with all of those changes lol.

The only shows that ever seemed to be constant were AT40 and Rick Dees.

[shadster]

I Think you might have somethin there w/ John Leader. I'm pretty sure by the end of '85, he had left Countdown America, because it disappeared from WAVA in dc, since I guess they didn't want Dick Clark on their CHR Power station......somehow they fanagled Rick Dees away from Q107 at the start of '86 so they could have a decent countdown show to air again. Course they only kept him around till Casey started CT40.

So perhaps your right, that Leader then started Countdown USA. I first heard C-USA in either '88 or '89, an Dave Sholin was host.

I have some recordings of Countdown america w/ John Leader, an some of the 'in-cue' and 'out-cue' jingles I have are w/ singers (singing: "countdown america") and some are not. Kinda interesting. I also have some, quite a few actually from after CLark took over where there is NO singing over the music bed. I only have 1 complete show of COuntdown AMerica w/ John leader, that I got off ebay......bought it from Karstens actually, he has a LOT of shows. ANd I think I have a Countdown USA show from '89 w/ Dave sholin, also from karstens.

[jedijake]

Yeah, I really liked the down-to-earth feel that Dick Clark gave his countdown. Don't get me wrong, Casey's the master, but there was something less formal about Dick Clark but not to the extent of being too informal.

I really liked the montages that John Leader did at the end of his year-ends. That, along with hearing Casey's medley of #1's gave me the inspiration to make my own year-end medleys of the top 100 songs-something I would do from 1988 until 1994. Too bad I got rid of these when I got my iPod a couple of years ago. (figured I would never want to listen to these since I eventually got all the songs from every top 100).

In any case, I did find it somewhat upsetting that I could not get Dick Clark's countdown after 1986, but realized it would be weird hearing him count down more "modern" stuff. DEFINITELY not as strange as hearing Casey countdown the garbage that was spewed across the charts in the early 2000's. I am really not sure how Casey found the stamina to stay with AT40 as long as he did.

I really wish I could get a hold of some old Dick Clark NMS and/or John Leader's Countdown America's.

[shadster]

I just have 1 from 1985, in LP form only. Havently even listened to it yet. I know Karstens has a bunch though

[snarfdude]

The 80's seemed to be a bumpercrop of syndicated countdowns, no doubt largely because of the success of AT40 that other networks produced their own countdowns. As it's largely a business, no one really sees the value of documenting specifics of a particular show, as, well, you're out to make money. It's unfortunately, given the success of AT40 vintage countdowns...what's old is new again.

I still have to laugh when premiere uses "we've unlocked the vault" in their promo ad's for AT40 the 70's and 80's. There was never a vault. Thanks largely to fans, they have what they have. People being fanatical about anything, certainly can have it's benefits, but unfortunately, too many people view fanatics as just that.

most of the other countdowns survive as a vague memory or turn up because their original program discs end up in collector circles because some station didn't want to throw them out. good thing vinyl was the medium of the day, or we wouldn't have that. reel to reel tapes, besides being too bulky to ship, also have the ability of being erased and re recorded over, which working in a few stations I know too well.

I'll tell you a story sometime about a 2 hr john lennon special I saved and gave a copy back to the original producer 20 years after he produced it because he didn't have a copy. These tapes were supposed to be "rerecorded" over...and a christmas short form radio series I literally saved from the tape eraser and upon posting online years ago received emails from many fans of this host thanking me. It was a very obsecure series.

Let's not think about countdowns of today, which, despite delivered on CDR, are primarily mp3 downloaded to stations to load into their automation systems, then deleted. nothing is kept. good for the station, not for archival reasons (though something maybe kept at the producer level)

I've got a few shows of Top 30 USA, and Top 40 satellite survey with Dan Ingram...off ebay, but i'm mainly radio specials focused, music and interview type stuff, I did tape CT40 when I was working for a station in the late 80's. In canada, it was fed via satellite to stations, without the commericals and billboards. Some of the edits were terrible, the program was dubbed to reel tape from the original vinyl discs, and probably physically cut. The dubs overall are pretty clean though, largely due to the better WWONE pressings and the smart thinking of WWONE to spread out ther 4 hour show over 6 discs....pushing 24-30/side when the max amount you usually put on one side is 20, you lose quality.

I did get a few CT40 sets from the distributor in canada, it pays to get to knows them....I really don't want to tell you what I was told they did with some of the vinyl after it went to air.......would cringe a collector....

[jedijake]

One of the most upsetting things I read a few days ago (I think I may have found the article through a link on this site) has to do with the "purpose" of music charts.

It was about the transition from the old way of charting to the new way (since 1991). It's not a direct quote, but something like this:

"Music charts are not for entertainment purposes, but rather for the people in the industry itself". If music charts are not for entertainment purposes, then what about the countdowns? That was certainly a sign of our times when you hear a quote like that.

And yeah, I always wondered if the "vault" was open, then why isn't there access to any week of any year?

[Karstens]

So far, there has been some good information posted about these shows.

Being radio show collector, I can fill-in more details:

First, Dick Clark's National Music Survey debuted May 30, 1981. Dick left National Music Survey October 26, 1985. Yes, he made 231 Top 30 (three hour) shows during this period. The chart used was Cashbox until March 5, 1983 or 93 shows. Radio & Records charts were used for the rest of the show's run.

Dick Clark was the first host to produce two different versions of his weekly countdown show. Starting 1984, he made both a Pop & AC version of the Dick Clark's National Music Survey. I don't know the exact date when he made two versions as the earliest copy of an AC shows (that I have) is September 8, 1984.

Be careful when collecting DCNMS from 1984 on because you may never know what copy you are buying. The easiest way to tell is all AC shows come in pink boxes and are Top 25 countdowns not Top 30.

I don't have a complete set of Dick Clark National Survey; I have been able to find all but 26 of his of Pop shows. Any additional help is always welcome.

I'll add more information about Countdown America, Countdown U.S.A., Dave's Sholin's Insider & National Music Survey without Dick Clark in another post. It's a web of answers and yet questions still unknown.

[jedijake]

That's great information! Thanks a bunch!