How could Casey Kasem approve of this?

[Dvorak]

Based on what I've heard and read about the Ryan Seacrest show. AT40 chart is an absolute joke with no integrity whatsoever. How can Ryan even look at himself in the mirror each day. Can Casey sleep at night? As bad as Shadoe's show was and as annoying as Rick Dees' show can be, the Ryan Seacrest show has got to be the worst of them all.

Casey... please come back!!! We need you!!

[jmason]

the Ryan Seacrest show has got to be the worst of them all.

I agree, Rick is annoying, but you get use to it, but Ryan is like letting a little kid do the show. There's no way Casey could come back, unless Ryan quits, and he wouldn't do that. He needs the show to add to his fame.

[irice22]

I don't mind Ryan Seacrest. I just hate how inaccurate the chart is!

[singingsparrow]

Ryan Seacrest has no integrity. I agree.

Casey Kasem does have personality in what he does. I think he has THE distinctive voice of countdown radio.

Sadly, he is aging and there seems to be any known figures who can fill his shoes. Until the time comes where one is found worthy, I wish Casey would keep up at hosting, though I respect and understand everyone needs time to rest and introspect too.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton

[chebingeo]

Ryan would be just fine if he wouldn't play with the chart so damn much. (Latest quote from Seacrest camp in the sig)

[irice22]

To be honest I never liked Casey's voice on the radio. It was very irritating. And I don't care how long he's been around, I don't like it.

[j]

Can someone answer these questions for me?

How is Ryan Seacrest like a little kid?

How can you claim that Ryan Seacrest has no integrity?

How is the current AT40 chart "inaccurate"?

How does Ryan "play with the charts"?

The only screw up I've seen is the omission of "My Happy Ending". Probably a mistake that won't happen again.

[hamjerzee]

Dvorak said:

Based on what I've heard and read about the Ryan Seacrest show.  AT40 chart is an absolute joke with no integrity whatsoever.  How can Ryan even look at himself in the mirror each day.  Can Casey sleep at night?  As bad as Shadoe's show was and as annoying as Rick Dees' show can be,  the Ryan Seacrest show has got to be the worst of them all.

Casey... please come back!!! We need you!!

Ryan could care less about the Mediabase chart as compared to AT40, so of course he can look himself in the mirror every day.

Though he created it, Casey can sleep at night because he (I'm assuming) doesn't have to hear the show week after week and see the travesty that it has become.

I haven't listened to Rick or Ryan's shows in a long time (pushing two or three months now, I guess), and I'm not part of the generation that heard Shadoe, but I don't think pleas will bring Casey back...ever. The show gained popularity when Ryan took over. Look at Z100 here in New York. They buried AT40 at 1a-5a on Monday mornings, and on holidays (Labor Day, etc.), it didn't get played until Tuesday morning! When they made the host switch, it moved to Sunday mornings, just like most other stations.

I agree that it's too bad Casey isn't hosting, but with his age, with the show's popularity, and with the Fourth Reich (maybe that's a little strong) that Seacrest is leading, he probably isn't thinking of a comeback, and neither is Premiere.

Just my take.

[irice22]

j said:

The only screw up I've seen is the omission of "My Happy Ending". Probably a mistake that won't happen again.

I can't think of any examples but he is very innacurate. "My Happy Ending" was not the only screw up. The biggest screw up, but not the only one.

[j]

Not using R&R's pop chart does not mean inaccurate. He uses his own panel of reporters i.e. the stations that carry his show.

How does R&R choose its panel? By Arbitron ratings?

[Dvorak]

j said:

Not using R&R's pop chart does not mean inaccurate. He uses his own panel of reporters i.e. the stations that carry his show.

How does R&R choose its panel? By Arbitron ratings?

R&R's panel uses virtually all the pop stations in the nation while Seacrest only uses the stations that broadcast his show. So Seacrest's show is quite self-serving, while R&R is a true snapshot of the pop music nation.  Also,  the fact that Seacrest plays the old recurrent songs in his countdown and doesn't use R&R's recurrent policy brings down his show.

In the classic days of AT40 (1980-1984),  the charts supplied playlists and the stations left out the old songs because they weren't really hits anymore; they were oldies.

On today's chart, songs like This Love, Naughty Girl are so stale and stations still play them because they are familiar.  R&R and the old AT40 rightly focus on new hits.  Seacrest's reliance on the old recurrent songs (remember he played In Da Club for over a year after it first appeared).  The pop chart should not be so static.  It has a dynamic history!

I love the R&R chart.  It's got the Franz Ferdinand and Lloyd and the new Switchfoot.    Seacrest's chart is so sluggish and not what chart watchers care about.

what a wasted opportunity

[j]

Dvorak said:

R&R's panel uses virtually all the pop stations in the nation while Seacrest only uses the stations that broadcast his show. So Seacrest's show is quite self-serving, while R&R is a true snapshot of the pop music nation. Also, the fact that Seacrest plays the old recurrent songs in his countdown and doesn't use R&R's recurrent policy brings down his show.

I think there are around 250 Pop stations in the whole country, and the R&R pop panel only has 121 stations. That's hardly "virtually all the pop stations". On at40.com which I think appeared after Seacrest took over, 171 stations were listed as carrying the show. I've been told that that list is outdated, but I guess over 100 stations carry his show. That's quite a comparable panel size.

The argument against recurrent rules are valid, but it does not make the chart inaccurate. It may make the chart sluggish, but no more so than the ridiculous AT10. Also, there are quite a number of people out there who don't believe in recurrent rules and think those rules make the chart inaccurate because it doesn't portray the 40 songs receiving the most airplay over the week.

[Jeffster]

Dvorak said:

As bad as Shadoe's show was

Shadoe's show was good.

And Casey doesn't need to "come back." He still hosts two countdown shows. American Top 20 has much better music than what's on the pop chart anyway.

Except for Nickelback.

Oh, well, and Hoobastank, but they're on the pop chart too, so that one's a wash.

[Pink Champagne Ricochet]

Most of, though not all, of the CHR/Pop stations on R&R are AT40 affilliates. There have been serveral notable discrepancies between the two charts (outside of reccurents), which is puzzling. Could those 40-something stations not airing the show have been the only ones playing Avril enough to get her in the top 20 for the main chart, while the others were completely ignoring it? Someone did a calculation on one of the AT40 weekly threads, between "My Happy Ending" and Lloyd Banks' "On Fire". The former was leading in spins in AT40 affilliates as well as R&R., yet the latter was the only one on the countdown.

And I reserve the right to make fun of Ryan Seacrest and his lack of understanding of numbers and calculations. The American Idol 2 finale proved it. "The difference is 1,300 votes...no, 13,000 votes....(after the finale)it was 130,000 votes." After that, I really don't trust him on anything with charts, stats, or figures, which is why he may not have been the best choice to take over this show :)

AT40 (and Dees, for that matter) usually come on too early for me to listen (I like to sleep in on weekends ;) ), but when i've caught them i've enjoyed the lower reaches of the countdown where you could hear new songs. Guess that's over.

[Edf85]

I dont know why you are all saying Ryan Seacrest "fools with the chart". How do you know he is the one compiling it?

[j]

splitchick59 said:

There have been serveral notable discrepancies between the two charts (outside of reccurents), which is puzzling.

Were there any other glaring ones other than "My Happy Ending"? The small differences can be attributed to panel differences.

[krazymack]

I have no reason to believe that Ryan is fooling with the chart. I think AT40 higher ups are the ones who decided to broadcast a stale chart and is messing with Ryan's career, not to mention making him look like the total fool.

He did a fine job with Casey Kasem's formula when he subbed for him. But now they are making him look like a total idiot.

I wouldn't be surprised if they ever wanted to replace him and do whatever the heck they wanted to do with their crappy 'desperate to be hip and lure youngins' type of' show.

[Radical347]

Dvorak said:

Also,  the fact that Seacrest plays the old recurrent songs in his countdown and doesn't use R&R's recurrent policy brings down his show.

Maybe in your book, but he gets about 100 points in mine! Countdown shows should not use recurrent rules; they're for the industry. Normal people that just listen to or even follow closely the countdown shows get confused when songs fall clear off the chart from like #14.

Recurrent rules aside, I don't think that not using the R&R chart is a bad thing. I remember when Rick Dees switched to R&R and so he and Casey were using the same chart for awhile and it got incredibly boring because they both played the exact same songs every week in the same order, minus the occasional rap song that Dees would skip.

Anyway, Ryan Seacrest has the most obnoxious and annoying personality in the world which is why I didn't listen to his Top 40, but now that I know he doesn't use recurrent rules I'll try to start listening to it. :)

[Johnser]

Maybe that is why AT40 is popular again with the younger crowd. Because Ryan Seacrest is the host and somebody that the younger crowd can relate to. Since most of us who post on here grew up listening to Casey, it is easy to see why we might think that AT40 has become a shell of its former self. That is why we have AT20 and AT10 which is more geared to the 25 and up crowd.

[620 Soul Train]

The chart that Ryan uses does not represent AT40 or an American chart. I thought that an American chart was a chart that used the majority of the stations playing a popular song. Using less than half of the reporting panel and/or broadcast stations eligable for Arbritron ratings does not constitute a popular song - now that's inaccurate.

[j]

joshjoel said:

The chart that Ryan uses does not represent AT40 or an American chart. I thought that an American chart was a chart that used the majority of the stations playing a popular song. Using less than half of the reporting panel and/or broadcast stations eligable for Arbritron ratings does not constitute a popular song - now that's inaccurate.

Huh? So you're saying there are only about 60 stations carrying AT40 (that's half of the Mediabase panel of 121 stations)?

Then why is it that Avril's spin gain rose from 560 to 718 after finally getting played on AT40? That's an increase of nearly 160.

[BlahBlahBlah]

If you really want to get technical and question why AT40 doesn't take into account the most popular CHR/Pop radio stations for their chart, then why not include stations of all formats like the Billboard Hot 100?  After all, it's called American Top 40, not American Pop Chart Top 40.

[Arson]

Oh please. In terms of airplay charts, R&R (along with Billboard Airplay Monitor) is still regarded as more or less "official". R&R has a reasonably representative sample of top 40 stations in the US. For that reason, the old AT40 can be deemed more "official" by chart watchers (at least those who still believe R&R means something).

In any case, I doubt the casual listener could care less what data is used by a particular countdown. The order of songs on the countdown is a surprise for casual listeners whether or not it's from R&R.

I would think the regular listener likes the recurrent songs kept on the countdown because they're the same people who continue to request "Yeah" and "Naughty Girl" (not to mention "In Da Club" while it was still on the chart).

[620 Soul Train]

Well, still, the AT40, modern that is sucks booty! Hugely! Even as a listener, I probably wonder why the heck some of those songs are hangin' around instead of hearing for example, that new Avril Lavigne, when you know good and well that it's getting tons of airplay. You tell me how "accurate" that is!

[j]

joshjoel said:

Well, still, the AT40, modern that is sucks booty! Hugely! Even as a listener, I probably wonder why the heck some of those songs are hangin' around instead of hearing for example, that new Avril Lavigne, when you know good and well that it's getting tons of airplay. You tell me how "accurate" that is!

I've repeatedly asked for SEVERAL examples every time someone yells "inaccurate" yet the only thing I hear about is "My Happy Ending". I'm sick of it.

Please do not base your claims on your own prejudices and on just one example! Even R&R and Mediabase screw up a lot - think of all the songs that went recurrent early and the ones that stayed on for an extra week (3 Doors Down, J. Lo, P. Diddy I think...)

As for Mediabase & BDS having reasonable samples of stations, then so does AT40. Just because it ignores some highly rated stations does not make its panel "unreasonable". I once did a comparison of the AC stations monitored by R&R & BDS and found quite a few stations not monitored by both that were in large cities. Someone pointed out to me that some of them were on the Modern AC panel on R&R but quite a few were ignored altogether. I know BDS has other requirements such as percentage of currents played before including a station of their panel of reporters. AT40's decision to use airplay solely from its affiliates is as good a criterion as any.

[620 Soul Train]

Here is my concern, OK? Actually these are some questions and perhaps some comments as well.

For AT40:

Are they really breaking and making new and fresh hits?

Did you forget that an average limerance of a song is about 12-26 weeks. (Why do you think there is that recurrent rule?)

Yeah, the chart does not appear to be inaccurate, yet I still believe that the countdown show is total rubbish. Why? The reporting panel is small in reporters which should be close to the majority of all so called pop stations. The hits are repetitive - a lack of currents and so called currents that really should be recurrents. Now I have read all the posts amd replies carefully. I strongly believe that I have backed up my opinion on this - if you have some questions, concerns, or questions that need to be revisited please let me know. You know, Rick Dees at this point is the only countdown, that I can recall, breaking the hits.

[j]

joshjoel said:

Are they really breaking and making new and fresh hits? ...
... The hits are repetitive - a lack of currents and so called currents that really should be recurrents.

No, they're not breaking new songs into the public consciousness. I do agree with you on this. I think stale countdowns are quite pointless (look at AT10!) and I don't listen to them. I think the main reason why R&R changed their AC recurrent rule to 50/5 is to influence the AT10 chart so that new songs could enter and be introduced to the public. But this has nothing to do with "inaccuracy."

joshjoel said:

Did you forget that an average limerance of a song is about 12-26 weeks. (Why do you think there is that recurrent rule?)

I'm quite sure "limerance" isn't a word, but I figured out what you're trying to say anyway. If radio is slow on latching on to new material (as compared to the 80s) then charts should reflect that. "Out of the Box" and other extras played have the purpose of introducing new music, not the songs that are falling on the chart.

joshjoel said:

Yeah, the chart does not appear to be inaccurate, yet I still believe that the countdown show is total rubbish.

Inaccuracy and your opinion that it's rubbish are two totally different things. You have no proof that it's inaccurate, but you're most certainly entitled to your own opinion. I take issue with people making claims like it's inaccurate but I do share to a certain extent your opinion (Well, I like the old AT40 better, that's all).

joshjoel said:

Why? The reporting panel is small in reporters which should be close to the majority of all so called pop stations.

You said you read all the posts in this topic. On Page 1, I mentioned that there are about 250 Pop stations in the country according to Airplay Monitor. Mediabase/R&R tracks only 121 of them because the rest are in small towns with an average listening population of a NYC apartment building. It's a safe guess to say that AT40 has over 100 reporters too. How big should the number be before you're satisfied?

Bottom line: If you think AT40 isn't representative, then neither is Mediabase.

[Arson]

It would be great if the new AT40 was a bit more transparent with their accounting of which songs end up where. The lack of transparency makes it difficult to tell if an inaccuracy is truly an honest mistake.

Oh well, we're not talking about the national budget here.

[phieaglesfan712]

It makes me sad to see how Ryan Seacrest slowly took apart Casey’s creation and ran it to the ground.

I'm so glad that I can listen to the 3-hour AT countdowns of 1970-78 on Sirius XM 70s on 7. The quality started going downhill when it expanded to 4 hours and became more commercialized.