CT40 re-released to terrestrial radio.

[18withabullet]

Westwood One destroying the masters of AT40...could it be this kind of genius decision making that has their stock at $1.22/share?

[18withabullet]

So tired of folks slamming the phenomenal Rick Dees! His own peers hated on him when "Disco Duck" was released; but check the facts and figures---that record made a LOT of money!

[mrjukebox]

I'm assuming the reason Westwood One came up with the title "Casey's Top 40" is because "American Top 40" was the intellectual property of ABC/Watermark-Am I correct about this?

[JasonWQMA]

CT40 didn't have a great number of affiliates when it was actually airing (in the mid to late 90's especially). I believe "Casey's Hot 20" was probably more widely heard. As such, reruns seem less likely to me than an AT40 type situation. But maybe I'm wrong. Especially after some time passes.

Another thought is that it would be great if some past syndicated shows could air as specials somewhere. Something like "lost radio shows weekend". I'm sure syndicators themselves could dig in the vaults and put together such packages and barter them as special programming to stations to run for an entire weekend (maybe holiday weekends). Why not a weekend of like Dick Clark year end countdowns for example? Or shows that don't exist anymore like countdowns from Scott Shannon or Dan Ingrams 80's top 40 show (Top 40 Satellite Survey I think it was)? These types of shows will never be rerun on a regular basis because they were short lived but would be great specialty programming somewhere.

Perfect example of the lack of creativity in radio today. Things like this would be super cheap to produce but would actually have great nostalgia factor. The most talked about shows on XM seem to be Casey, Rick, and Wolfman Jack. People like reruns of #1 DJ's much better than voicetracking nobodies or automated jukeboxes. (Of course XM just throws these on because they are cheap anyway...)

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

Your suggestions are good and I'd email them and let them know you're interested. I don't think anyone answers (or even checks) email at 90s on 9 but Kurt Gilchrist ("HR" on the 70s on 7) supervises the decades channels and would be the person to talk to.

[mkarns]

Sept 21, 2008 22:30:48 GMT -5 JasonWQMA said:

CT40 didn't have a great number of affiliates when it was actually airing (in the mid to late 90's especially). I believe "Casey's Hot 20" was probably more widely heard. As such, reruns seem less likely to me than an AT40 type situation. But maybe I'm wrong. Especially after some time passes.

Actually, I read in Rob Durkee's book (which I just got through the mail last week) that CT40 had, as of 1992, more affilliates than either Rick Dees or the then-Shadoe-hosted AT40. Perhaps the number of affiliates declined over the next several years, though.

I'd like it if someone could do a Premiere-type rebroadcast of Casey's Top 40: The 90s, but that would leave out nearly two years of the decade unless it were coupled with his 1998-99 AT40 shows (like Westwood One will ever let that happen.) At least Dees gives us the whole decade with the same host.

Looking to the future, if anyone ever decides to run "American Top 40: The 2000s" rebroadcasts there might not be the same legal issues or missing masters, but jumping back and forth between Casey Kasem and Ryan Seacrest-hosted shows might confuse many, not least because of their differing styles.

[JasonWQMA]

I know CT40 launched on hundreds of stations but I'm pretty sure the overly wild music fragmentation of the 90's almost killed it. The show itself realized that and split into the 3 different formats.

Casey seemed to repeat affiliate mentions more frequently on the top 40 show before it's demise.

AT40 with Casey relaunched with better CHR affiliates due to Premiere's help getting it on Clear Channel stations. Also Premiere had policies that helped get Casey more stations. With Premiere, one area could air the HOT AC and the CHR show; under Westwood One, exclusivity agreements prevented this. In the mid 90s, I know one PD that wanted Casey's CHR show but couldn't get it because CH20 was airing in that city.

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

Quoting Mkarns: "I'd like it if someone could do a Premiere-type rebroadcast of Casey's Top 40: The 90s, but that would leave out nearly two years of the decade unless it were coupled with his 1998-99 AT40 shows (like Westwood One will ever let that happen.) At least Dees gives us the whole decade with the same host"

Westwood One doesn't hold the rights to Casey's Top 40 anymore. Premiere/Clear Channel does. Should they choose to do so, they could come up with something along the lines of "Casey: The 1990s" or whatever they feel is best.

However, Premiere's existing strategy has Casey and American Top 40 together and this is best shown on the July 3, 1999 show when Casey starts by citing "this day in 1970, American Top 40 signed on the air for the very first time and it sounded like this" and played the song at #40 on the first show. When Casey left Westwood One to restart AT40 in Mar 1998, he put CT40 behind him and, as far as I know, never referred to "Casey's Top 40" or on any of his shows, probably as a result of Westwood One's suit and lingering bad feelings over Casey's departure in 1998. Westwood One probably felt the same way and that's probably why they destroyed the CT40 masters in their posession. On the first Casey AT40 year end show in the 1990s (1998), when he came to the position for Semi Charmed Life, he noted that the song was "in a second year-end show" without saying what the first one was (we know that it was the CT40 1997 year end show). In short, the late 1990s-early 2000s version of AT40 with Casey Kasem claims its roots in the original American Top 40 (1970-1995), not Casey's Top 40 although the later version continued to use Radio and Records charts like CT40 had.

[Scott Lakefield]

Sept 21, 2008 22:30:48 GMT -5 JasonWQMA said:

CT40 didn't have a great number of affiliates when it was actually airing (in the mid to late 90's especially). I believe "Casey's Hot 20" was probably more widely heard.

Not true, as pointed out above. In its "heyday," CT40 was the champ of the top 40 shows. It fell victim to the fragmentation of the CHR format. For instance, Casey lost New York in late 1994 when WHTZ flipped to an alternative format. He returned to the Big Apple when Mix 105.1 (WMXV) added "Casey's Hot 20" in early 1995. That ended when the station flipped...to an alternative format. (Never thought about that odd coincidence until now...) Casey wasn't heard in NYC again until the AMFM shows began in March 1998. And that was apparently exactly the problem. He wasn't being heard in some major markets, thus effecting the total audience and revenue numbers for the show...so dramatically that it was apparently these facts that allowed Casey to exercise a clause in his contract to leave WW1, which even resulted in a lawsuit.

[pzimm7700]

Never realized how many markets he wasn't on in when it got to the mid-late 90's timeframe. He was on WAPE in Jacksonville forever and a day, and he was on XL 106.7 in Orlando...in fact,when AT40 ceased distribution in the USA in June/July 94, XL ran Casey's show in AT40's old timeslot (Saturday 6-10)as well as the one it's own (Sunday 8:whenever it wanted to start-12:whenever it ended just in time to hear the noontime DJ give some insulting, crass line about Casey and/or the show every week). This didn't go on for a week or two either, it occupied both timeslots for well over a year until they started running the Top 30 Hitlist Saturday morning instead. Once that show was axed from the airwaves which happened within a few months, there was not another Saturday morning show on XL that I know of.

[jedijake]

How many average listeners really knew the difference between AT40 with Casey Kasem and CT40? To most, it was Casey counting down the hits.

Shadoe had somewhat of a following for about 2 or 3 years while he was using the Hot 100. But when Billboard changed over, listeners of AT40 neither had Casey or the Hot 100.

[mrjukebox]

In my opinion,Shadoe was the wrong person to replace Casey Kasem as host of "AT40" in 1988-For one thing,Shadoe wasn't as dynamic as Casey-It's too bad that Casey wasn't able to work out his problems with ABC-Watermark-I would've like to have seen him stay on as host.

[Jeffster]

Jan 3, 2009 20:59:01 GMT -5 mrjukebox said:

In my opinion,Shadoe was the wrong person to replace Casey Kasem as host of "AT40" in 1988-For one thing,Shadoe wasn't as dynamic as Casey-It's too bad that Casey wasn't able to work out his problems with ABC-Watermark-I would've like to have seen him stay on as host.

I liked Shadoe better than Casey myself, but of course Shadoe was the first AT40 host I ever heard. I enjoyed Casey's Top 40 as well, but it sounded more scripted, Shadoe sounded like he was having more fun, and AT40 seemed to feel like a more important show for some reason.

[mkarns]

Jan 3, 2009 20:59:01 GMT -5 mrjukebox said:

In my opinion,Shadoe was the wrong person to replace Casey Kasem as host of "AT40" in 1988-For one thing,Shadoe wasn't as dynamic as Casey-It's too bad that Casey wasn't able to work out his problems with ABC-Watermark-I would've like to have seen him stay on as host.

According to Rob Durkee's book, Shadoe might have been more dynamic if those in charge had let him do so. He liked to joke and do "theater of the mind" type productions, which were usually vetoed or edited out; one exception was the "AT40 Hall of History" on his debut show. He also complained about too much editing even of his natural breath pauses; I remember listening and being amazed about his ability to say so much clearly without seeming to pause for breath.

Almost the only humorous innovation that he was allowed to maintain was his reference to the staff as the "Whiplash Acrobatic Ensemble."

[UnknownEric]

Jan 5, 2009 12:03:44 GMT -5 mkarns said:

Almost the only humorous innovation that he was allowed to maintain was his reference to the staff as the "Whiplash Acrobatic Ensemble."

Back in the late 90s, I had a short-lived band by that name. Sadly, absolutely nobody got the reference...