Saturday Aircheck: Scott Shannon On Z100

Here are a number of audio clips aired by WHTZ 100.3 FM / Z100 in August 1998.  The station aired a series of vignettes 'remembering' Scott Shannon on the occasion of Z100's 15th Anniversary.



The station went on the air at 6:08 AM on August 2, 1983 with program director/morning show host Scott Shannon. The first two songs ever played on the station were "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor, followed by "America" by Neil Diamond. Initially, the station called themselves by their new call letters, but by late August, they began calling themselves "Z 100". The station signed on from its new and still-incomplete studio in Secaucus, transmitting from the old FM tower site in West Orange, New Jersey, as their antenna was not moved to the top of the Empire State Building until August 4 at 6 AM.

Z100 was the second station that summer to attempt to bring the Top 40 format back to New York, with rock station WPLJ having begun the evolution to top 40 in June. WHTZ was programmed to remind listeners of one-time AM powerhouse WABC, which had gone from a tight Top 40 format to leaning Disco in early 1979 to leaning adult rock later in 1979, to leaning adult contemporary in 1980 and then evolving to Adult Contemporary/Talk in 1981, before it finally flipped to an all-talk format on May 10, 1982.

WHTZ 100.3 FM (6kw) 54dBu Coverage

Within 74 days of signing on, WHTZ had climbed from last place to first in the New York Arbitron ratings book. Scott Shannon left Z100 at the end of 1988 to begin "Pirate Radio" in Los Angeles