Fat 40

The Fat 40 is a weekly countdown show on The Edge FM in New Zealand played every Saturday afternoon at 2PM. The show is currently hosted by the Drivetime announcers Fletch and Vaughan and plays the Top 40 songs for the week on The Edge.

The Edge Fat 40 started around 1998 originally known as Stables Fat 40 and was hosted by Iain Stables. The original show theme music used the song The Rockafeller Skank by Fatboy Slim. The Top 40 songs were made up of the most popular songs played during the previous week on The Edge, information taken from the daily Top 20 countdown, requests and airplay of each song. As well as the Top 40 songs for the week the show featured highlights of Stables weekly Drivetime show. Extras included the "Back-Fat" which was a requested song that would have featured in The Fat 40 a few years earlier and the "Retro-Fat" which was an older track. The show also included the Fat 5 Movies which were the Top 5 movies for the week.

The Fat 40 originally played in syndication on Radio Stations around New Zealand where The Edge did not broadcast and to Radio 2AP in Samoa.

The format of the show changed slightly in 2001 when The Edge updated most of their jingles, the Theme Song "The Rockafeller Skank" was dropped at this time. In 2002 Stables left The Edge and the show was taken over by announcers that took Stables place before a permanent replacement was found, when Stables left the name changed to "The Fat 40". Today The Fat 40 still includes an older track known as the "Old School Fat" this is a requested track from the past few years, and a new feature is "The Fat 40 Cordless" where an acoustic version of a requested song is played if possible.

Stables Rump 30 Countdown

In 2003 Stables joined ZM, the opposition station to The Edge. Previously ZM had run a weekly Top 30 Countdown at the same time on Saturday afternoons, known as the "Essential 30" during the late nineties and "The Top 30 Weekend Edition" between 2000 and 2002. When Stables joined ZM he then started the "Stables Fat 30 Countdown" which was identical to the original Fat 40 Countdown Stables hosted on The Edge. The show was advertised as being hosted by the original "Fat One" Stables and even included the "The Rockafeller Skank" theme music. The show included all features offered on The Fat 40 on The Edge.'

Unfortunately the "Stables Fat 30 Countdown" only lasted with this name for about 3 weeks where it is most likely The Edge took legal action against ZM. The show was quickly renamed as "Stables Black 30" and Stables stated they were calling the countdown The Black 30 as part of the 2003 Americas Cup, all of the liners remained the same but the word "Black" was dubbed over the word "Fat". Two months later the show became the "Stables Rump 30" with a slightly newer format and originally still using "The Rockafellar Skank" and using the line "the rump soul brother" instead of "the funk soul brother". In February 2008 Stables left ZM and Stables Rump 30 is now just known as "The Rump 30" and is hosted by Sarah Gandy (ZM Weekday Daytime host), Mark Dye (ZM Nightshow host) and Kierran a.k.a Tintin the Intern. At this stage The Rump 30 still operates in a very similar way to the original Fat 40 countdown that Stables hosted on The Edge, the show includes "The Rump 5 Movies", "The Retro Rump" and "The Back Rump" as well as the best of the Drivetime show and on ZM. Additional features added to the show since Stables left are the "Rump Saver" where listeners are given humorous way to save money with rising costs in New Zealand. The Rump 5 Movies now includes the top illegal downloads which are obviously fictional.

Both The Fat40 on The Edge and The Rump 30 on ZM are believed to be voice tracked during the week except in cases where the stations crew opt to broadcast the show live from an event.