Reasonable Broadcast Times

[at40petebattistini]

I believe there have been many comments over the years about less-than-desirable broadcast times for a favorite countdown radio program. But what about those shows heard at a reasonable time? Here are a few quality air-times that I remember listening (or trying to listen) to AT40 on a regular basis:

WTHI-AM Terre Haute, Indiana; Sunday 12noon-3pm
WCSI-AM Columbus, Indiana; Sunday 3-6pm
WDHF-FM Chicago; Sunday 9am-noon
WBYG-FM Kankakee, Illinois; Sunday 1-5pm
WLS-AM Chicago; Sunday 9am-1pm

Of all of those listed, my favorite time was Sunday, noon-3pm.

[Scott Lakefield]

The most reasonable time I can remember for AT40 in New York City was during the 80s...9am til 1pm. I *THINK* they might have run it for awhile from 10am til 2pm, but I'm not 100% on that.

I do remember that for awhile they wouldn't change the start time for the eight-hour year end show, so Casey would be on from 9am til 5pm, which was cool.

[bandit73]

It seems like in the late '70s, WOKV Cincinnati aired AT40 at something like 6 to 10 PM on Sundays, but that it later moved to mornings.

By 1983, WKRQ aired AT40 from 9 AM to 1 PM on Sundays, which I considered reasonable (as long as I didn't have to go to church). By 1987, WKRQ also aired it from 9 PM to 1 AM (in addition to the morning airing). But in 1989, the morning airing was replaced by CT40, so AT40 was then heard only at night. This was unreasonable, because I usually had to get up at 5 AM to go to school on Mondays. (It took over 2 hours to get to my high school on the school bus.)

In the Shadoe era, WGTZ Dayton aired AT40 starting at something like 6 or 7 PM on Sundays. I would have been able to listen on my boom box, except every few minutes some country station in Lexington would cut in on the same frequency. Thanks, FCC.

In the late '80s, WKRQ usually aired AT40's 8-hour year-end countdown in the middle of the night. It was something like 1 to 9 AM on New Year's Day. I stayed awake all night to listen to it.

[shadster]

Here in DC, the popular slot was sunday morning. Virtually every countdown was aired sunday morning, at least from the mid 80s on.
AT40 8-noon on Q107
CT40 7-11am on WAVA
WT40 7-11am on Hot99.5, which later moved to 10pm - 2am
AT40 8-noon on B104 Baltimore
AT40 9-1pm on Z106/Eagle106 Philly
AT40/CT40/AT40 8-noon on Q94 Richmond VA ALLWAYS!!!!! without fail
AT40 (Ryan seacrest) 8-noon on Hot99.5
CT40 8-noon K92 Roanoke VA
CT40 9-1pm on WQCM Hagerstown MD
WT40 8-noon on Z104 Norfolk VA in the 80s
AT40 8-noon on Q101 Harrisonburg VA
The only non-sunday morning timeslots I can remember: Sunday afternoon AT40 3-7pm on WRAR 105 Tappahanock VA; Rick Dees on the same station, saturdays 6-10pm (this was back in the 80s); Saturday nights CT40-6-10pm on Mix106.3 Easton MD; WT40 sunday nights (in the 80s) 7-11pm on Q107 dc; Z104 Fredrick MD I believe ran CT40 Sunday night 8-midnight, this was during 1994, I remember it came on after Joel Denvers Future hits which was aired at 7pm. BUT I also remember towards the end of the year, Elvis Duran & Patty Steeles Hit list live show became an actual LIVE top30 countdown which was 8-11pm sunday nights, so clearly CT40 was moved but I can't recall to when.

[Shadoe Fan]

WMEE in Fort Wayne, IN used to carry AT40 9am-1pm on Sundays from at least the early 80s until the Shadoe era, when the show was moved to a 6pm-10pm time frame.

[nenad]

Living in Croatia at that time, and being just a young kid when I discovered AT40, I guess Sat 7-10pm was an excellent slot - on Austrian Ö3!
But when I started to go out on Saturday evenings, I guess that was not so good slot at all...

CT40 had, on the other hand, a decent slot on Blue Danube Radio, Saturday afternoons (13-16 w/ no commercials)

VoA Europe had two really good slots (for both AT40 and CT40):
Sat 2-6PM and Sun 10AM-2PM!

Oh, those were the days

[Deleted]

Any Sunday afternoon timeslot if I had to listen in real time is the worst for me, NFL Football would be interfered with.

[kentd]

WBBO Forest City, NC aired Casey Saturday mornings, when it was a 3 hour show it aired 9:30am until 12:30pm. When the 4 hour show started, it aired 9:00 am until 1:00pm. I loved these airtimes...Saturday mornings in our small town BELONGED to American Top 40.
(When I worked at a large FM years later we aired Dick Clark's National Music Survey 1pm-4pm Saturday and 9pm-12am Sunday, which I always thought were awkward times...)

[dougray2]

Here in the triad area of NC, we had great airtimes for AT40. WSEZ (Z93) in Winston-Salem aired the show from 7-10 PM on Saturdays and again from noon-3PM on Sunday. When 4 hour shows started, it was 6-10 Saturday and 12-4 Sunday. I also listened to WBT in Charlotte which aired it Sundays at 10 AM.

[nenad]

Just remembered:
During the late Shadoe years Dutch station Radio 538 had a decent Sunday slot: 2PM-6PM

...and Slovenian Radio Maribor International (also called MM2 - read in German: M. M. Zwei) aired the same show on Sunday evenings (I'm not really sure if it was 6PM-10PM or 8PM-midnight). No commercials, only stations jingles inbetween, so show ran at about 3 hours 30 min.

[pandy]

I ran the board from 1979-1981 Sunday's from 6-10PM.

[bellbm]

As a child, my favorite timelosts were Sunday evenings, 6-10, or 7-11. Sunday morning times interfered with Church, and mid-day type slots (10-2) were always bad, since we would usually be doing some type of "family stuff", but Sunday nights were a good time to wind down, get ready for the school week, and there really wasn't much on tv on Sunday nights back then (Movie of the Week???)
Growing up in Eastern Iowa, it seemed as though you could always find Rick Dees on a station. AT 40 was absent for a few years, say sometime in 1990 til about the summer of 1992, although one station did play the 1991 Year End Survey, I was so excited, thinking AT 40 was back, but that station didn't start running the show again until sometime in 1993. Casey's Top 40 was on two stations from the start, then completely gone in the fall of 1991 (when KOKZ went from CHR to Hot AC, I belive they aired Casey's Countdown for a while on Saturday afternoons), and didn't resurface again until sometime in 1993 on KLYV.
Funny how things cycle, because in 1994 we could get AT40 on 3 different stations, I belive it remained on 2 util its end that summer. KLYV moved Casey's Top 40 from the Sunday evening slot to replace AT 40 in the morning, and KMCH switched to Rick Dees.
As an adult, I prefer Sunday mornings (6-10), since its over at a decent hour, and I can get on with my day. Iwish XM would move thier Sunday morning AT 40 show to start at 9 AM CST,.
But, who would have ever dreamed of a day when we would basically have these shows on demand, via internet radio streaming (its a far cry from moving my boom box all around the house trying to pull it in on a distant station)

[kry658]

Back in The 70's, WPIX-FM in NYC aired American Top 40 on Sundays from 10am-1pm. That worked for me at the time.