List of Casey's Countdown affiliates

[palmer7]

Does anyone have any information about the "great radio stations" Casey's Countdown was heard on?

[OnWithTheCountdown]

I have many of the early shows, so I can give them a listen to find out what stations were mentioned.

[MEF]

WKQI 95.5 FM in Detroit Michigan aired Casey's Countdown from April 4, 1993 until the premiere of Casey's Hot 20 in November 1994. WIOG 102.5 in Saginaw, Michigan aired the show sometime in late 1992 to the mid 90s. KBIG in Los Angeles was one of the early affiliates,

[palmer7]

Jul 4, 2020 21:50:23 GMT -5 MEF said:

 WIOG 102.5 in Saginaw, Michigan aired the show sometime in late 1992 to the mid 90s. 

A CHR station airing an AC countdown? Strange.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

On the inaugural show dated 3/7/1992, Casey mentioned these radio stations:

Hour 1: Y105 (Mansfield, OH), KITE FM (Newport, OR), Mix 94 (Avalon, NJ)

Hour 2: Mix 93 (Kansas City, MO), 98.5 FM "The Cat" (Catskill, NY), 96.7 TSA (Brattleboro, VT)

Hour 3: KS95 (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN), Q108 (Clarksville, TN), 94 FM (Franklin, NH)

Without Googling, Casey often didn't mention call letters. But this is a start.

[Mike]

Jul 8, 2020 13:13:02 GMT -5 palmer7 said:

Jul 4, 2020 21:50:23 GMT -5 MEF said:

 WIOG 102.5 in Saginaw, Michigan aired the show sometime in late 1992 to the mid 90s. 

A CHR station airing an AC countdown? Strange.

Not exactly...turns out WIOG was flirting with a Hot AC orientation as early as May 1992; they're cited in the 5/29/92 issue of R&R as moving their format in an Adult direction. (One of the earliest prime examples of this, following that, is their being one of the top supporters of Peter Cetera's "Restless Heart", which peaked at #26 CHR but hit the top on AC; he made it as high as #2 on their weekly playlists, bested by only one station that I can see at any point that gave him time at #1.) [ETA: Turns out that Peter did reach the top of their playlist after all for a week, in an issue I came up to a week or two after typing this.]

I'm curious to see when R&R takes them off the CHR panel - at the latest, it'd be 4/22/94 when they debuted their Hot AC section, but there's a chance it comes sooner, as WIOG had a CHR rival that was truly a CHR in the form of WTCF. WTCF isn't panel-listed yet at this point in 1992, but that'll be coming soon. (WTCF, incidentally, was cited as an AT40 affiliate upon their 1998 return, but they went rogue with their format in the middle of 1999. No idea if WTCF would have been a Casey's Top 40 affiliate prior to the return, though it'd make sense.)

One last thing: WIOG being a Casey's Countdown affiliate puts them in the club of stations who were carrying multiple hosts in some form - assuming record-keeping was fully accurate; they're read as an AT40 affiliate on 3/5/1994. Carrying one AC show and one CHR show would be a strange concept, but one could say this was just how it was for Hot AC stations before their format was fully-designated and recognized.

[Mike]

...well, that didn't take long. Turns out WTCF were added to the CHR panel in the 8/28/92 issue of R&R. For now, they're both on the panel.

They were in the 8/14 issue because two of the station's owners apparently cashed out their stock...or something like that. I'll let someone who's more knowledgeable about radio sales transactions take a stab at it. worldradiohistory.com/Archive-RandR/1990s/1992/RR-1992-08-14.pdf#page=7

[shadster]

Perhaps a lil background here? What was Casey's Countdown? Straight HotAC, Straight AC, or a hybrid? I'm assuming AC if Casey's Hot 20 came into existence later. Further complicating things was when AT40 came back, both shows were called At-20, till the AC show finally became AT-10. Yes i know technically different shows, aka not Westwood1 but AMFM but casual listener's may not even of noticed much change at all.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

Feb 6, 2022 1:56:04 GMT -5 shadster said:

Perhaps a lil background here? What was Casey's Countdown? Straight HotAC, Straight AC, or a hybrid? I'm assuming AC if Casey's Hot 20 came into existence later. Further complicating things was when AT40 came back, both shows were called At-20, till the AC show finally became AT-10. Yes i know technically different shows, aka not Westwood1 but AMFM but casual listener's may not even of noticed much change at all.

It was AC, which debuted on 3/7/1992. Casey's Hot 20 (Hot AC, or HAC) debuted on 11/5/1994.

[dukelightning]

Casey's Countdown debuted on 5/2/92. The countdown names were changed to AT10 and AT20 when AT40 restarted in 1998.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

Feb 6, 2022 6:57:16 GMT -5 dukelightning said:

Casey's Countdown debuted on 5/2/92. The countdown names were changed to AT10 and AT20 when AT40 restarted in 1998.

For years, I thought it did as well.  But it actually debuted on 3/7, the same weekend the shows switched to CD.  I have many of the early shows.  Here are the cue sheets from Casey's Countdown (most are available), and they start at 3/7/1992.

Also, and this may have confused some, but both the AC and HAC shows were "American Top 20" once the 1998 reboot occurred.  Then, AT20 AC became AT10 on 3/20/2004.  It was still a 3-hour show like the top 20 was, but with more extras and a spotlight feature.

[dukelightning]

I stand corrected! When I heard the 5/2/92 Casey's Countdown a few years back shortly after I had acquired it, I was under the impression that it was the first show. Btw, except for the first ever AT40, there is no first show of any countdown that Casey did in which he indicates it is the first such show. Not for CT40, any of the AC/HAC shows, or the second run of AT40. They obviously wanted people to think when they first tuned in, that it was an ongoing countdown. So in connection with the first Casey's Countdown, something changed on the CT40 shows. What changed was the charts that Casey mentioned the #1 songs from. Since the beginning of CT40, he had only mentioned the #1 songs on the black and country charts. With the inception of Casey's Countdown, this changed. He first mentioned the #1 song on the AC chart the week preceding the countdown's inception, on 2/29/92. Mark Elliott guest hosted the last CT40 where only the #1 songs on the black and country were mentioned, on 2/22/92. Wonder if anyone listening on the 2/29/92 show caught that change to include the AC chart #1 song.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

^ I heard the 2/29/1992 show in 2017 and again in 2020 (the year of my 1992 marathon), but I don't recall the specifics of the #1s. Will have to re-listen to it.

The show promos and show open for 3/7 definitely makes it known that it's a brand new countdown. At the time, I was working at a local supermarket and heard a lot of AC hits there, that were counted down on this show. It wasn't until early 1993 that I found a station airing Casey's Countdown, which I had stumbled upon by accident. A lot of my exposure to AC music came from inside that supermarket. 🙂

[bellbm]

the show promos for Casey's Top 40 say it's a new show. I don't have the first Casey's Countdown so can't say what the promos say. The Casey's Hot 20 promos do not indicate it's a first show.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

Jul 9, 2023 21:31:26 GMT -5 bellbm said:

the show promos for Casey's Top 40 say it's a new show. I don't have the first Casey's Countdown so can't say what the promos say. The Casey's Hot 20 promos do not indicate it's a first show.

The promos for Casey's Countdown do say it's a brand new show, and Casey also mentions it in the show's open.

Interesting that Casey's Hot 20 promos and the show open don't mention it's a new show at all. It has the feel of being there for a while before, and Hot AC being similar to CHR (this would be more true in more recent years).