Casey's Top 40 was a syndicated radio music program that was distributed by the Westwood One radio network. The show was a vehicle for former American Top 40 host and co-creator Casey Kasem and ran for over nine years. Like Kasem's prior show, Casey's Top 40 aired on weekends, emanated from Hollywood, California, and was a countdown of the 40 biggest hits of the week on the popular music chart. Unlike American Top 40, this show is not replayed or syndicated, whilst the former is still currently being replayed and syndicated.
Background In February 1988, after negotiations on a new contract had been unsuccessful, ABC Watermark announced that it would be searching for a new host for American Top 40, and that May the syndicator hired Shadoe Stevens to take Kasem's place. After eighteen years hosting the show that he created, Kasem's final episode of the original American Top 40 aired on the weekend of August 6, 1988. Kasem remained under contract with ABC Watermark for the rest of 1988, the final year of a contract he signed in 1981, and as part of his exit he agreed to allow the network to continue using the branding through a licensing arrangement.
Meanwhile, Westwood One approached Kasem shortly after ABC Watermark announced they would be looking for his replacement and made him an offer that would have paid Kasem three times what he was making on AT40. The two sides reached an agreement in April of that year, and Kasem joined the network. Due to his contract still being in force, Westwood One could not use Kasem until early 1989 when the contract ran out.
However, with the veteran disc jockey now part of their ranks, Westwood One made a significant effort to promote Kasem's arrival. A promotional package was sent to potential affiliates which included a “Westwood One Survival Kit” for the interim period that was labeled “What to Do Until Casey Comes.” Inside the kit were a “shadow simulator” (portable flashlight), a button reading “Casey in ‘89,” and a pin with the date of his premiere on Westwood One.
Casey's Top 40 premiered on the weekend of January 21, 1989 on stations both within the United States and overseas. Some of those stations had been carrying American Top 40, and opted to drop it in favor of Kasem's new show; in some cases both countdowns aired on the same station.
Substitute hosts As on AT40, Kasem would require substitute hosts from time to time. In the early years of the show, the role was filled by voiceover artist Mark Elliott, who had also been one of many substitutes for Kasem on AT40. From 1993 until 1998, veteran Los Angeles DJ David Perry was the designated fill-in.
Similarities between Casey's Top 40 and AT40 Casey's Top 40 was similar to Kasem's old AT40 show, featuring Kasem's trademark voice, teasers and trivia about songs and artists (including the "stretch" stories). However, while American Top 40 used the Billboard Hot 100 as its source, Casey's Top 40 used the weekly CHR airplay-based survey produced by Westwood One's then-subsidiary Radio & Records. AT40 would eventually follow suit by moving to airplay-only charts, switching first to the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart and then to its Mainstream Top 40 chart.
When it launched, Casey's Top 40 was one of several shows using the Radio & Records chart; in addition to Unistar Radio Network's Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, this list included two programs already under Westwood One's corporate umbrella, The National Music Survey hosted by Charlie Tuna for Mutual (but using the R&R AC survey instead) and Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown hosted by Scott Shannon for Westwood One.
In 1994, Radio & Records split its weekly CHR survey into two different trackers. One focused on stations with a dance/rap/R&B-centered playlist, called the "CHR/Rhythmic" chart. The other chart, which tracked more traditional pop music was now called CHR/Pop, and it became the new chart source for Kasem's countdown, beginning with the program airing the weekend of April 30, 1994.
Like AT40, Casey's Top 40 was timed to generally fit ten songs per one hour. The show divided each hour into segments, with four three-minute commercial breaks inserted per hour. Each hour consisted of five segments, the last of which was the shortest. Unique to Casey's Top 40, the last segment for each hour (never the last hour) consisted of one song and a teaser by Kasem used to segue into the next hour, followed by a musical bumper for stations to play their hourly required station identification, before immediately going into the next song on the countdown to start the next hour; this segue would carry over to the revived AT40 in 1998.
Features
Last Week's Top 3: As he had done on American Top 40, Kasem would begin each countdown a rundown of the top three songs from the previous week's survey, often playing the previous week's chart topper to begin the show (although this became more infrequent as the years went on). The first of these was "Two Hearts" by Phil Collins, which had reached the top spot the week before Casey's Top 40 premiered and would retain its No. 1 spot that week. Jingles: A new set of jingles was recorded for Casey's Top 40 by JAM Creative Productions, which included the usual song-number and title bumper jingles as well as the trademark "Casey's coast to coast" jingle from AT40 recorded in a different rhythm and key. JAM also composed the show's opening theme, which included singers doing a count down shout counting down from ten over the music until they reached "Number One!", something that would follow Kasem for the rest of his career. His AC spinoff Casey's Countdown also had its slogan jingle created by JAM ("Casey Counts Them Down"), which would be later used on his other countdown shows. Initially, some of these jingles referred to the show as "CT40", but ABC Watermark won an injunction preventing this reference for being too similar to "AT40". Droppers, Biggest Movers and Longest-Charting Song: For each song that debuted on the countdown, one had to fall out of the top 40 to make room. Kasem referred to these as "droppers" and would identify the songs that the show had to "say goodbye to" that week. He would also identify the song making the largest leap up the chart and the longest-charting song still in the Top 40. Request and Dedication: Kasem continued to take requests from fans requesting songs dedicated to others who affected their lives. Since he could not use the AT40 title "Long Distance Dedication", these became known as "Requests and Dedications", with typically three of these segments airing per show. Originally, these requests were received entirely by postal mail, but listeners were later provided the ability to fax in their requests. Beginning with the countdown airing the weekend of July 8, 1995, listeners could also submit requests through an America Online email account created specifically for Kasem's program. Request and Dedication Update: Later in the show's run, the producers began reaching out to the listeners who had their Requests and Dedications fulfilled. Those same people were encouraged to follow up with the show by sending postcards to the producers with their telephone numbers if they had updates on their situation. If one was selected, Kasem would phone that person and conduct a brief interview, of which a snippet would play during the following countdown. This was largely a feature unique to Casey's Top 40, as the original AT40 very seldom included updates for past Long-Distance Dedications. Affiliate mentions: Another AT40 staple included in Casey's Top 40 was Kasem's hourly mention of some of the "great radio stations" carrying his show. Other charts: Kasem continued his AT40 tradition of announcing the songs topping other Radio & Records charts during the final hour of each countdown. He usually made mention of the R&B (originally Black) and country charts, later adding the adult contemporary chart and the alternative rock chart once those launched. If any of those songs appeared in the top 40, Kasem would make note of it before playing the song. Special reports: Usually at least once per episode, Kasem would break from the countdown to report on an item of relevance, such as a snippet of music news, or field a listener question. Trivia Quiz: Once per episode, Kasem would lead into a commercial with a music question with three multiple-choice answers. After the commercial played, he would answer. Casey's Top 40 Concert Calendar: Unique to Casey's Top 40, Kasem would give a rundown of prominent bands with upcoming concerts. Closing: The final segment of each countdown featured the top two songs on the survey, just as Kasem had done on AT40. After playing the No. 1 song of the week, Kasem would read the show's credits and sign off with his trademark "keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars". He would also usually add "and keep your dial/radio tuned right where it is" to encourage listeners to keep listening to their Casey's Top 40 affiliate. That last portion was another carryover from AT40, which was used from 1977 to 1984, and would be used with AT40s revival in 1998.
Casey's Biggest Hits As a further promotional tool for the show, Westwood One added a weekly strip of interstitial segments featuring past chart hits to the countdown package shipped to the affiliates, designed to be played during the week. Each week, five segments were produced, each usually longer than five minutes, with Kasem offering a teaser for the past hit. After a 60-second commercial break, he would return with the story behind the teaser and then play the song.
Special shows Kasem would occasionally host special countdowns focusing on past hits, such as his countdown of the greatest summer songs of the 1980s, which aired on July 7, 1990.
Year-end Top 100 As with AT40, each December, Kasem presented a two-part, eight-hour, 100-song countdown of the past year's hits. These episodes were usually aired around Christmas and New Year's Day, with the first 50 songs comprising one episode and the rest airing the following week. Kasem did a total of nine of these year-end countdowns, with the last airing over the weekends of December 27, 1997 and January 3, 1998.
Below is a chart of the songs that finished the year at No. 1. For the first year CT40 was on the air, only a Top 40 list was compiled.
YearSongArtistSource1989"Miss You Much"Janet Jackson1990"Vision of Love"Mariah Carey1991"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You"Bryan Adams1992"End of the Road"Boyz II Men1993"Dreamlover"Mariah Carey1994"The Sign"Ace of Base1995"I Know"Dionne Farris1996"Missing"Everything but the Girl1997"You Were Meant for Me"Jewel
Expansion into adult contemporary charts As with AT40, Casey's Top 40 also had problems with some stations reluctant to play music that did not agree with their format. In one example, WSTR in Atlanta, Georgia, being an anti-rap station and a very Adult Contemporary-leaning CHR, edited "Another Night" by Real McCoy (a Euro disco record with rap breaks) out of its broadcasts of Casey's Top 40 in 1994, even while the song was at No. 1 on the show.
In 1992, Kasem added a second countdown show. With mainstream pop radio in decline, and many Casey's Top 40 affiliates having an adult contemporary format, Westwood One launched Casey's Countdown on March 7, 1992, as a three-hour, 25-song countdown (reduced to 20 on August 13, 1994), using the Radio & Records AC chart. In addition to the weekly hits and "Request and Dedication" pieces, Casey's Countdown also included what was referred to as “Extras”, which were past hits from artists with anecdotes from Kasem.
On November 5, 1994, Kasem began yet another show, Casey's Hot 20, a three-hour countdown that used a new Radio & Records hot adult contemporary chart that had launched in April. The format was nearly identical to Casey's Countdown.