In August of 1952, Todd Storz and his Program Director, Bill Stewart, debuted the first top 40 station in the US. By April of the next year, KOWH was #1 in its market. Of course, the "music and news" of this format saved radio which was facing the lift of the TV application freeze (1952) and nearly 2,000
 new TV stations. Those of us who work in radio today owe our careers in some way to this 500 watt daytimer in Nebraska.

Of course, the term Top 40 had not been coined yet, but the format was, indeed, the base for Top 40. The term would come out of another Storz station, WTIX in New Orleans.

While it can be argued that the name "Top 40" was some time in coming, the concept of a station playing hit songs over and over with no block programming was conceptually different and represented the path radio would follow to reinvent itself following the lift of the TV licensing freeze.