NYC Radio: Scott Shannon Signs-Off At WCBS-FM "Bye Buckaroos"

Scott Shannon, Patty Steele Friday

Scott Shannon — the legendary DJ who blew up radio in the early ’80s with his "Morning Zoo" format — will wrapped a nearly 40-year New York run Friday morning. His last broadcast for WCBS/101.1 FM, where he's co-hosted the morning show with Patty Steele since 2014, originated from Valhalla, Westchester County-based Blythedale Children's Hospital, for which he and Steele have raised millions in various charity drives over the years.

Shannon, 75, surprised listeners in late October when he said on his show that he would leave by the end of the year, immediately raising some questions — health-related or a contract dispute with radio giant Audacy, which owns the historic station? Shannon said in a phone interview earlier this week that "my health is fine," but he declined to comment on Audacy, reports Newsday. (He'll continue to host the nationally syndicated "America's Greatest Hits,'' which airs on WCBS-FM on Sunday mornings, and his "True Oldies Channel'' on WCBS-FM HD3.)

Nevertheless, he did not exactly rule out a return to weekday morning radio either. Shannon has, in fact, retired and unretired before, notably at the end of a long run at WPLJ in 2014 before joining CBS-FM.

"I'm going to take a month off to relax, play a little golf and think about my life. I'm not one of those guys who sits around meditating. I enjoy working. I tell people I think I do have a little Tom Brady in me. I might have a few touchdowns left in me. But I've got to think about it and do the right thing. I also don't want to be one of those guys who comes back and who everyone feels sorry for. It's got to be the right thing."

After a stint in the Army, the Indianapolis native hopscotched stations around the South before landing at Tampa's WRGQ/105 FM, where the first "Morning Zoo" was launched. Shannon then arrived in New York in 1983 to revive the moribund WHTZ — 51st in the ratings, as the legend goes — and he did.

At the Secaucus, New Jersey-based station, he rebooted his "Morning Zoo" — parodies, prank calls, comedy bits, sendups of rivals — then supercharged it. As the recent documentary on Shannon, "Worst to First: The True Story of Z100 New York," related, he told his head engineer that "I want a flamethrower" to come out of people's radios when they listened.

(The flame would become the station's symbol.) He also built a sprawling and like-minded "Z Morning Zoo" support team — Ross Brittain, Prof. Jonathan B. Bell, Claire Stevens, Anita Bonita, Cathy Donovan, J.R. Nelson, Jack the Wack, Janet From Another Planet and Dr. Christopher Reed. Together they staged on-air guerrilla assaults on various radio rivals, with WPLJ, the other Top 40 station in the city, the favored target. Shannon dubbed it "WIMP."

Seventy-four days after launching on Aug. 2, 1983, "Z-100" was in first place. Fame followed Shannon, and so did the copycats — hundreds of stations would launch their own morning zoos — and he began to build a national profile, as host of Top 30 countdown show and as one of the first "VJs" on VH1. He left Z-100 in 1989 for Los Angeles, then returned in 1991 to join the very station he had spent a decade firebombing — WPLJ, where he would spend the next 23 years.

Of Z-100, Shannon now recalls that "I was very lucky — right time, right place, right guy. I was too dumb to be scared. But no, I don't think anything like that can happen again, although I am happy to report that Z-100 is still a successful, influential radio station. I like to say I built it to last."