SubscribeIn 1983, the Disc Jockey landscape would change forever out of New York City....From a bread and butter standpoint, one must remember that the record companies still viewed radio stations as a promotional vehicle for the record companies. New York desperately needed a pop station to fill the format.Ultimately, I agree with this sentiment.
With FM providing the better quality of music, FM was where the music would now be heading. There were plenty of FM Stations. ...WVNJ 100.3 focused on Easy Listening and Jazz for many years. With declining ratings, WVNJ was sold to new owners who decided on a format change. The idea was to become a "Hit Radio" station and start to fill the void left by WABC. On August 1, 1983, the sale of WVNJ became final. As part of the sale, WVNJ would move to a more powerful transmitter to support the format change. The night following the sale, the format change occurred. WVNJ became WHTZ or Z100.
However, more important than the format change would be the arrival of a new program director - one Michael Scott Shannon - aka Scott Shannon. Shannon would also become the morning Disc Jockey. Shannon's arrival would mark the beginning of his morning show - the Z-Morning Zoo. Many had considered Shannon the architect of the "Zoo format". This was a format he had architected while in Cleveland. The idea of this was full-scale morning entertainment while still playing plenty of music (as opposed to WNBC which had moved away from doing that). While they would play music, but also do skits and plenty of gags. It was described as a combination of "The Tonight Show", "Saturday Night Live", and "Talk Radio" format. Shannon was known as the "Head Zookeeper", but it involved so much more. Shannon would utilize a whole team. He would bring in a co-host Ross Brittian (a WABC alumni). He had a traffic reporter, a news anchor, producers, and comedians and would play a role on the show. Characters such as "Mr Leonard", "Captain Kevin", "Anita Bonita", and "Coach Mike" were an integral part of the Zoo's success. Shannon was hailed as a genius as Z100 instantly catapulted to the top of the ratings. The morning show would also fulfill its role as a springboard for the day's programming.
While there were variations of the zoo format, none had ever had the scale or marketing as Z100's Z-Morning Zoo. The amazing thing is that it worked. Z100 - combined with a big year in music proved to be a successful format. Targeting morning radio, now people had something else to listen to besides either bringing one's own music or listening to the same old stuff. It wasn't long before other "Zoo format" radio stations would evolve. In fact Ross Brittain would leave Z100 to go form his own "Zoo" in Philadelphia.
The zoo format put less dependency on the Disc Jockey fulfilling the role as teacher of the music and more dependency on the entertainment portion. Shannon was very successful because he was able to pull off both sides of the equation. However, it soon became clear that for one to be successful pulling off this format, one had to be the entertainer. This was not a role that could be filled by a teacher like Scott Muni or Dan Ingram. In the meantime, actors soon discovered this could be a way to find work. Jay Thomas was a "B List" actor who had found a home at WKTU in New York. He would flourish under this new format in radio and be one example of someone who would find great success.
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posted by graventy at 6:10 AM on April 23