Well, it's been a year

[BrettVW]

Well, it's been a year since Casey Kasem departed American Top 40 and Seacrest began counting 'em down.

How do you feel the show has done in the past year? Do you still continue to listen as you did when Casey was host? Did your affiliate change to a better timeslot/worse timeslot, did an afflilliate add or drop the show?

Personally, I will always be about Casey. Whatever Casey is hosting is what I will listen to. But that is just me. I know for my locak CHR, WAKS/Cleveland, Seacrest definately sounds better on the station than Casey ever did. Now, mind you, I loved Casey's AT40 and would wake up every Saturday at 6 AM to listen. But as a whole, I know Seacrest is better for the station, as well as most of the CHR's out there.

Seacrest's show, while it does not use the R&R chart, I feel is still better than Dees. The thing about Dees' show is the "fakeness" of it, with the interviews and such, as well as all the corny song bits and what not that just seem to waste time.

For the most part, I think most affiliates either improved the timeslot or kept it the same. In fact, the only station I know that put AT40 in a "worse" timeslot when Casey left is WKST/Kiss 96.1 in Pittsburgh. It ran Casey on Sunday Mornings from 8-Noon, but when Ryan took over AT40 moved to 5am on Saturday.

All in all, I feel the new AT40 is exactly what CHR/Pop radio needed. While it is not necessarily what us Casey fans wanted, it was for the best. Plus, we still have AT20 and AT10, which, to me, is music I prefer anyway.

Anyway, what do you all think?

[Deleted]

I was one of the people who said I would not listen to the new show, not so much as I hated the idea Seacrest was hosting it, but all of the other changes coming to the show. However, a few months after he took over I listened, and I liked it. I think Ryan does a great job and as the previous poster said, it was what CHR wanted and needed.

[Jeffster]

Well, as I said at this time last year, I like Ryan Seacrest. My problem with the current AT40 is the same problem that every generation has. I've outgrown the music. I can't relate to the thug-rap and pop-punk and interchangeable female singers that sing off-key that dominates the "CHR" charts these days. Sure, there is the occasional diamond in the rough (I'm thrilled at the success of Switchfoot in the mainstream), but by and large, the music is just unlistenable to me. I think it's unquestionable that top 40 radio died awhile back, there is never going to be the kind of variety there was in the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Radio has changed too dramatically, and with the corporate conglomerate domination of radio, it's not likely to ever change back.

When I was a kid, top 40 radio still played songs that could appeal to adults, now the CHR stations seem squarely aimed at teenagers or adults who act like teenagers, and are not at all interested in having a wider audience, because it's no longer about having a good radio station and developing an indentity in the community, it's about streamlined, cookie-cutter cost-cutting, and making the most money for the company nationally without regard to the local market's heritage or people.

Good thing many of us have plenty of old countdown shows from the glory days of top 40 radio when it was still a mass-appeal format.