[Description by contributor KM Richards]
During its big years as a syndication company, Drake-Chenault would produce “Best of” reels for its stations to play over New Years. In 1979, they added a new twist  no doubt due to the fact that they had launched The Weekly Top 30 in July of that year  which was a countdown of the top ten contemporary sounds, to be played in the 11:00 PM hour as a lead up to “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. With Mark Elliott tied up hosting WT30, this was generically hosted by Jim Carson, long-time Los Angeles air personality (at the time, working at KIQQ) and the voice of of D-C’s “Contempo 300” and “XT-40” current reels.
Since this show was provided to client stations of both formats, the song list was modified somewhat from what Billboard had determined were the top songs of the year, although somehow “My Sharona” by The Knack managed to sneak in, making for a rather odd deviation for those “Contempo 300” stations that ran this special. As far as I know, 1979 was the only year that Drake-Chenault produced a countdown reel, and they never did one for any of the other formats.