40 years of AT40
American Top 40 celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend and it sounds like Ryan and his team have a great show planned! The anniversary show will include a tribute to the show’s creator and original host Casey Kasem, highlights from the show’s history, Ryan will reveal the top artist of the last 40 years, and a competition for Lady Gaga fans will be launched. The show’s Executive Producer @therealcc tweeted: "@AmericanTop40 fans 1 more day til our big @ladygaga annoucement. SUPERFANS, get ready -- even @ryanseacrest wants to win this trip(s)!"
AT40 reaches around 20 million people worldwide every week via 500 radio stations and has become an important part of popular culture. Ryan has hosted AT40, which is still the number one countdown show, since January 2004:
“The American Top 40 is the soundtrack to life. You listen to these songs and you go back years ago when it started and you remember certain things. You’ve celebrated to some of these songs; you’ve partied to some of these songs; you’ve driven to school and work to these songs and it’s a true soundtrack to what’s happening in popular culture.”
“I love hosting the show because it’s a great race. It’s dramatic and everybody wants to be on top. Everybody wants to be number one and when you get to tell an artist that they’ve got the number one song in the country that week, they’re elated! They’re so excited about it and one of the great parts about hosting the show is being able to deliver that news to an artist. I know that they get frustrated when they get bumped out of number one, so that drama on the chart is always consistently fun. It’s fun for me to host and it’s fun for the audience to listen to.”
“This show is really special to me personally because it’s the one show I grew up listening to as a kid and I remember every single weekend tuning into the American Top 40 to find out if my songs, the songs I liked, were the songs everybody else liked and the songs that were going to go to the top of the charts. So I take a lot of pride in hosting this show every weekend.”
I can’t wait to listen to the show … happy anniversary AT40!
The American Top 40 website has been redeveloped too and is looking much improved!
American Top 40 airs on KIIS FM from 6am PDT Saturday morning and on stations throughout the US and worldwide at various times during the week. Find it on a local station via hwww.at40.com/stations or check the listings on radiotime.com
