American Country Countdown, also known as ACC, is a weekly internationally syndicated radio program which counts down the top 40 country songs of the previous week, from No. 40 to No. 1, according to the Billboard Country Airplay chart. The program premiered in 1973 and as of January 2006 is hosted by Kix Brooks. It is syndicated by Cumulus Media Networks. History American Country Countdown was conceived as a spinoff program from American Top 40 (AT40), which had premiered in 1970 and showcased the week's most popular singles. The new program was a creation of Casey Kasem and Don Bustany, the same duo behind AT40, with Tom Rounds as co-creator and Watermark Inc. distributing. "In 1969, when Casey Kasem and I were planning 'American Top 40,' we said, 'Hey, if this works, we can do a country countdown, an MOR countdown, a whatever countdown,'" Rounds explained to Radio & Records magazine as to the show's conception. However, it was not until 1973 that the AT40 team thought there was sufficient support for a nationally syndicated program. American Country Countdown launched nationwide on October 6, 1973. Like with its parent series, Billboard provided the chart information; in this case, the Hot Country Singles chart was used. Beginning in the late 2000s, the show used charts compiled by Mediabase, and in September 2017 it switched to using the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Singer Don Bowman was the first host of the countdown, which was originally three hours long. Bustany was the producer, Hugh Cherry was the head writer, and Bowman was also a writer. There was editing help from Bustany, who was the head writer and producer of AT40. In June 1974, Bustany stepped aside from his duties in order to focus on AT40 and tapped Bob Kingsley, who had been program director at country station KLAC-Los Angeles, to be ACCs producer. It was under Kingsley's watch that the program began to increase in popularity, as more and more stations picked up the countdown. On May 6, 1978, Kingsley took on the added responsibility of hosting ACC. Don Bowman had not made any mention that he would be departing the program on the previous show; Kingsley informed the audience that Bowman had left the program to pursue other aspects of his career. The show grew slowly, with fewer than 100 stations the first year before passing the 300-affiliate mark in 1980. Beginning