Which Hot AC Countdown Will You Listen To Now

[hotacfan69]

Now that the last American Top 20 with Casey Kasem is finally over Which countdown show will you listen to now Rick Dees,Randy Jackson or Ryan Seacrest?

[at40forever]

That would depend if any of their charts are any good

[musicfanpete]

Jul 5, 2009 13:11:01 GMT -5 at40forever said:

That would depend if any of their charts are any good

Jackson's and Dees' move faster, and are fresher. Songs also tend to peak higher, so both are more up to date than the AT40 chart.

I guess I would listen to Dees because I like his chart even though it's definately "fudged" in some spots.

[Mike Schwartz]

I guess that I will jump over to Randy Jackson's Hitlist-though I might still sample some of the other programs on occasion. My reasons are:

1) Like Musicfanpete, I feel that the show sounds much fresher and the hits peek more realistically then on AT40.

2) Hitlist is the only pure Hot AC show. Both Dees and Seacreast use the Hot AC show as a little sister, to the main countdowns. Actually Dees seems to think of his Hot AC as an afterthought as the annual #1 Hits of the Decade show illustrates (read the other posts on this board under that heading). Randy's countdown is strictly and exclusively Hot AC! His other show is Urban leaning AC, but this is his only Pop/Rock focused program.

His show is loyal to the format, so I will return the loyalty.

[musicfanpete]

Jul 6, 2009 5:18:42 GMT -5 Mike Schwartz said:

I guess that I will jump over to Randy Jackson's Hitlist-though I might still sample some of the other programs on occasion. My reasons are:

1) Like Musicfanpete, I feel that the show sounds much fresher and the hits peek more realistically then on AT40.

2) Hitlist is the only pure Hot AC show. Both Dees and Seacreast use the Hot AC show as a little sister, to the main countdowns. Actually Dees seems to think of his Hot AC as an afterthought as the annual #1 Hits of the Decade show illustrates (read the other posts on this board under that heading). Randy's countdown is strictly and exclusively Hot AC! His other show is Urban leaning AC, but this is his only Pop/Rock focused program.

His show is loyal to the format, so I will return the loyalty.

I agree with your post other than I will probably stick with Rick Dees since his show has been around for a long time. But I have a bad feeling that the stations that did air Casey will probably go with AT40 due to its "brand" name.

I don't mind listening to Seacrest like many do, but it's the chart that is the problem. If you took just the upper half of the AT40 chart and kept the recurrents off once they fall out of the top 20, that wouldn't be a bad thing. But with 40 songs, you have songs like "Love Song" that hang around in the 21-40 portion of the chart for 30+ weeks! That does not make for a good chart to say the least!

[Mike Schwartz]

Like Musicfanpete states above, the chart is the first of the problems with today's countdown shows. The other problem, IMHO, is that these programs lack the crucial elements which made the (Casey era) AT 40, AT 20 and AT 10 so compelling to the listener. While I don't have anything against TV and film stars, I have often tuned into these other countdowns to hear a 3-4 hour informercial for their latest projects. Casey would have nothing to do with that. His programs began and ended with the music acts and their art. Who among us wasn't captivated by the signature elements that made Casey's shows such a must listen week after week (ie the trivia, behind the scenes teasers, music news etc). Today's shows downplay these elements, not due to lack of ability to replicate them, but rather due to audience apathy. Forums like Pulse allow the faithful to traffic back and forth in those features, which used to animate Casey's program.