The July 4th weekend will be the last countdown for radio veteran Casey Kasem. After 39 years (to the day) of playing the hits "from coast-to-coast," Kasem will sign-off his American Top 10 and American Top 20 syndicated radio programs.
Kasem and Premiere radio agreed that this was the time to end the franchise with Casey moving on to his other regular voice work in advertising and cartoons and Premiere saving some dollars. Ryan Seacrest will continue to host American Top 40, which he took over from Kasem in 2004.
American Top 40 premiered on the July 4th weekend in 1970 on just seven stations and was distributed by Watermark. Originally three hours in length, it had to move to four hours in 1978 due to the increased length of the hits of the day. The show was filled with information about the artists and songs, recaps of music from other genres and the infamous Long Distance Dedication.
Kasem left the show on August 6, 1988 over a contract dispute and it was taken over by Shadoe Stevens but it didn't keep him out of the countdown game for long. In 1989, Casey's Top 40 premired over the Westwood One radio network and quickly started stealing stations from the original AT40 roster.
Stevens' version of American Top 40 left the air in the U.S. in mid-1994 while Kasem's show was still going strong. In late-1997, Casey tried to talk his Westwoon One managers into letting him rename Casey's Top 40 to American Top 40, but they refused. Kasem took the show to AMFM Radio and the new version debuted on March 28, 1998.
Casey stayed with the new AT40 until January 10, 2004 when Ryan Seacrest took over the reins, leaving him with his Adult Contemporary versions, American Top 10 and 20 shows. Newly digitized versions of his 70's and 80's AT40 shows were also aired on satellite radio and, eventually, in syndication.
SOURCE: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com
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