'American Top 40' Celebrates 56 Years: How Fans Keep the Legacy Alive

Among the numerous jobs held by Ryan Seacrest is radio host. Every week, part of his broadcast is dedicated to a certain music-centric program that dates back 56 years.

In fact, Saturday, July 4 marked the anniversary of American Top 40 debuting. In 1970, it was the late, great Casey Kasem who launched the song-countdown program that's clearly still going strong today.

In the early '70s, American Top 40 played "the best selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico," as Kasem stated on the first broadcast, per NPR.

"The thing about Kasem was that he had such a warm vibe and he was such a good storyteller that he could read the most mawkish letter and make it very powerfully relatable," Chris Molanphy, pop music critic and host of the Hit Parade podcast, once told NPR. "You find yourself getting choked up listening to these little stories."

By the early 1980s, the show was reportedly heard on more than 500 stations across the U.S. and on the Armed Forces Radio Network around the world. Fans of certain generations can attest that Kasem brought a unique charm and sense of humanity to the show between the songs played that helped boost the show's popularity - in addition to the fact that the tracks themselves were wildly popular.

Seacrest, 51, took over for Kasem in 2004, and radio listeners still tune in to On Air with Ryan Seacrest every week to get the lowdown on what's currently buzzing in the pop music world.

In other Seacrest news, the TV host did a Q&A in May with the Wheel of Fortune studio audience and answered a question that, it turns out, many fans have been wanting to ask. Asked how he knows how many of each letter is in each puzzle - and how quickly he knows - the longtime host shared that while he does his homework before the show, he has somewhat of a "cheat sheet" to help him out. Find out more here.

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This story was originally published July 5, 2026 at 2:15 AM.