Thirty years ago today, Z100/WHTZ was born. Related: “Never Say Never” for WPLJ’s Shannon Staying with Morning Show Studios were in Secaucus, New Jersey, and licensed to Newark, but to make it attractive to listeners across the Lincoln Tunnel, a transmitter was built atop the Empire State Building. WVNJ was playing a mix of beautiful music by day and jazz by night, when Cleveland-based Malrite Communications purchased the station. Shannon was charged with turning an inconsequential signal at 100.3 FM into a flamethrower frequency. It was in the same era that Scott Shannon gave a much-needed boost to Top 40 radio in New York. Scott Shannon Relives Z100’s Debut 30 Years Laterīill Cosby helped rejuvenate the sitcom genre in the 1980s.
This entry was posted in Obituaries, Radio and tagged Frank Reed, Howard Stern, Kevin Metheny, Private Parts, WNBC on Octoby JerryBarmash. “I think a fair and appropriate amount of artists’ liberties taken with factual elasticity in order to make a more interesting project,” Metheny said.
In 2012, marking the 30th anniversary of Stern’s arrival, Metheny told me that the movie and book were not gospel. Private Parts documents Stern’s journey to becoming New York’s top rated DJ. Stern was hired as afternoon personality in 1982. Stern this week referred to his former boss as a “Nazi vampire.” Although he was sad to learn of Metheny’s death and that he leaves behind two daughters, Stern is not sure he “ever fully recovered” from the way Metheny ran WNBC. Metheny died Friday night of a heart attack while on the job as operations manager at Cumulus’ KGO and KSFO in San Francisco. While Metheny never worked in New York City after being fired from WNBC, he did build a deep resume as a go-to radio programmer in numerous markets. (Stern called him “Pig Virus” in real life.) In the 1997 autobiographical film Private Parts, played by Paul Giamatti. To millions of Howard Stern fans, Kevin Metheny will forever be “Pig Vomit,” his character Fond Memories of Veteran Radio Programmer, Kevin Metheny, But Not for Howard Stern
This entry was posted in Books, Radio, TV and tagged 66WNBC, Bob Teague, Channel 4, Channel 9, Don Imus, Frank Cipolla, Howard Stern, Rolland Smith, Soupy Sales, WCBS-TV, WNBC Radio, WWOR on Apby JerryBarmash. As a newscaster, Cipolla was on the front line for some of biggest egos in the business: Howard Stern, Don Imus and Soupy Sales.Ĭipolla tells Tuned In it was equally stressful and hilarious. His time at WNBC is a favorite chapter worth the price of the book on its own. Cipolla has tons, probably enough for another installment from his beat in the five boroughs and New Jersey.
No need to be a war correspondent for anecdotes. (Available directly through Cipolla’s website, ) His longevity and versatile reporting skills for radio and TV are the framework for his 2011 autobiography, It Shocked Even Us and More Crazy Stories Covering Local News. Whether you know his work from name, voice, or face, chances are if you’ve been paying attention to New York news coverage in the last three decades you know Frank Cipolla.