FW: American Top 40 in the Boston market

[Ron]

There was a thinking among some programmers that the show started to lose it's way with the ever growing striations of the Top 40/CHR formats.

When AT40 started (on WMEX), it used Billboards Hot 100 to define the Top 40.  As time went on, the billboard chart became a mishmash of songs that didn't all sound right on a mainstream Top 40 station.

I think Casey Kasem ended up using Cashbox's(?) chart for awhile...but as we went into the 80's many variations of radio formats and the goalposts for each station became narrower.  It made it hard to place the show.  

There was a week I was listening to the end of the show on WBZ, and the #1 song was "Angel in the Centerfold".  Sounded really strange on BZ.  Wasn't quite the most popular song on Kiss108 (which always leaned rhythmic), or WZOU.  

AT40 didn't exactly define what WZOU and Kiss108 sounded like at that time.  

My $.02

R


-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Osborne <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com> 
Sent: Monday, March 1, 2021 6:09 PM
To: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: American Top 40 in the Boston market

This weekend something popped into my mind from the past that never made much sense to me.  Maybe someone on this list might have some more insight into it...In the Boston market, the show 'American Top 40 with Casey Kasem' used to run on WBZ 1030 from 1985 until sometime around 1991.  Why in the world did this run here and not on Kiss 108 or even WZOU during this time period?  Did Sunny Joe White and/or whoever programmed WZOU at the time not care for the show?  Everywhere else I came across the show during this time, it was on a CHR FM station except for Boston.
If anyone has any inside knowledge on why this was please share.
Matthew OsborneWest Sand Lake, NY