Casey's Top 40 was a CHR/Pop music countdown that was hosted by Casey Kasem and distributed by Westwood One from 1989-1998. Kasem joined Westwood One when he was unable to reach an agreement with ABC Radio Networks in 1988, who was the distributor of American Top 40 at the time.
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Casey's Top 40 was similar to Kasem's old AT40 show featuring Kasem's trademark voice, teasers, and trivia on the songs and artists (including the "stretch" stories) but rather than using the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, it used the Radio & Records CHR/Pop radio airplay chart (making it feature exactly the same song positions as the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40, which used the same chart at the time). Kasem's dedication letters segment was now called "Request and Dedications."
Initially, Casey would call the program "CT40", just like he would call his former show "AT40"; however, a lawsuit from ABC ordered Casey and Westwood One to refrain from using the short form name, as it sounded too similar to "AT40". (A country chart show, Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40, have called themselves "CT40" since beginning in 2005, without opposition.) Ironically ABC did not take issue with the "Casey's Coast to Coast" jingles although it used a different melody than the one used on AT40.
Due to the decline of CHR radio in the 1990s and a handful of Adult Contemporary stations carrying Casey's Top 40, Westwood One created an Adult Contemporary version of the program in 1992 called Casey's Countdown, which featured the top 25 AC hits from the R&R chart. In November 1994, Casey's Hot 20 premiered and highlighted the top 20 songs on R&R's Hot Adult Contemporary chart which the trade paper began in April of the same year. At the same time, Casey's Countdown began to highlight only the top 20 AC songs of the week.
All three shows continued until 1998 when Kasem left Westwood One following a dispute, in which Casey wanted to rename "Casey's Top 40" as "American Top 40", after getting the rights to the name from ABC, since Shadoe Stevens' AT40 had been off the air for over three years. Westwood One refused, so Kasem took himself and the AT40 name to startup radio network AM/FM Radio Networks (which was absorbed into Premiere Radio Networks) to revive American Top 40, and offer American Top 20 to AC and Hot AC radio stations. During the show's final weeks, guest hosts filled in for the "vacationing" Casey Kasem, even though he already left Westwood One for good following the dispute.
On the last two editions of these countdown shows (on March 14 and 21, 1998), no mention of Casey was made, and the shows were renamed "The Top 40 Countdown", "The Top 20 Countdown" and "The Hot 20 Countdown". The intent was for Westwood One to establish countdown shows to compete with the new AT40 in the future; however, after the last show on March 21, 1998, Westwood One never carried on with that idea.