Entertainment

Happy Birthday, <i>American Top 40</i>

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 4, 2000 / 4:22 PM EDT / CBS

One of radio's most durable shows, American Top 40, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter King. It debuted Fourth of July Weekend, 1970, and the host for most of its 30 years, Casey Kasem, says it's lasted because of statistics, great stories, long-distance dedications from listeners.

"We just wanted to keep it as simple as possible," he told CBS Radio News. The reasons for its success, according to Kasem:

"It was built around stories, biographies of the stars — not long ones, but short ones that had a beginning, a middle and an end and made sense.
"Statistics. We dealt in who had the most Number Ones, who had the most Top Tens, who had the most Top Forties, et cetera.
"About eight years into the show, along came the letter that I'd been waiting for for eight years, and that was a letter requesting a long-distance dedication."

That became the show's most popular feature.

American Top 40 Stats

First Show: July 4, 1970, weekend

Continuous? No, off the air 1995-8

First Song: End Of Our Road

First #1: Mama Told Me Not Come

First Host: Casey Kasem

Number of Stations in 1970: 7

Number of Stations in 2000: 400

Reason for Success #1: Biographies

Reason for Success #2: Statistics

Reason for Success #3: Dedications

It wasn't always smooth sailing: American Top 40 was carried by just seven radio stations that first weekend, and the early programs were a learning process for Kasem and the producers.

American Top 40 went off the air for three years in the 90s (1995-98), and Kasem was replaced for a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Shadoe Stevens, but Kasem says the show now is stronger than ever. It's carried by 400 stations.

"I predicted in 1970 when we started the show that we could be on for 20 years, easily, and probably for as long as we want, as long as we maintain the quality of the show," he told King.
"American Top 40 is an American radio institution," said Rob Durkee, author of American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century. "If you ask the countdown hosts of today — Dick Clark, Bob Kingsley, Rick Dees — ask them what show inspired them, they'll all tell you the same answer."

As he approaches age 70, Kasem has no plans to slow down.

"My greatest compliment is to have somebody who's 80 years old say 'grew up listening to you' and my other greatest compliment is when I have an 8-year-old say, 'I saw you on Saved By The Bell,'" he said.

After all those songs, stories, and statistics over the years, you'd think that Kasem might be a walking encyclopedia of rock and roll history. Do his fans hit him with pop quizzes now and then?

"People don't do that — I thank God — because if I had to come up with all the facts that people would like to know, and that they know that I don't know, I'd be in real trouble!" he laughed.

"I'm far from being an expert," he added. "There are people out there who can listen to one note of a song and tell you what the song is. I don't come close to that."

Just in case you're wondering: The first song ever played on American Top 40 was Marvin Gaye's End Of Our Road and the first Number One was Mama Told Me Not Come by Three Dog Night.