The Dick Clark National Music Survey was launched in 1981 by Dick Clark (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012) for The Mutual Broadcasting System. Designed as a direct competitor to Casey Kasem and American Top 40, the show was syndicated on vinyl and intended for weekend broadcast. Network commercials were included on the program discs. Clark hosted the show until he left Mutual in 1986.

It’s not clear, but Clark may have actually produced two versions of this show, one for CHR stations, and one for Adult Contemporary stations. This show, dated for air on the weekend of November 3, 1984, takes the playlist from the Adult Contemporary charts of Radio & Records magazine. And, instead of a Top 40 countdown, Dick reviews the top three from the previous week, and then counts down the Top 25, throwing in a couple of “former number one” oldies along the way.

Dick ClarkThese discs have been in storage since I received them in 1984. It’s obvious that Mutual and Clark were shipping a quality product. The show’s cue sheets were printed on heavy, cotton-fiber paper. They had never been out of the box, the discs had never been removed from their sleeves and of course, they had never been played! This accounts for the exceptionally clean sound you will hear. In fact, the audio is so good on this one that in addition to our regular Real Media full and ‘scoped versions (in three parts), we are also offering an extra high-fidelity long-playing HE-AAC Flash stream. It’s the same hi-fi stream available to our iPlay subscribers.

Dick Clark counts down #10 through #1, and speaks with Elton John and Kim Carnes. The show closes with a triva question and REELRADIO blasts us back to today with a short clip from Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest was hand-picked by Clark to assume his duties on the annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

And by the way, who was the voice on the Oxy 10 spot?