A Documentary titled Worst to First: The True Story of Z-100 will be released on February 11 on iTunes for $12.99. You can see the trailer at
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Z-100 Documentary is Coming on February11
- Thread starter BruceNYC
- Start date
I was just waiting to hear the infamous jingle package kick in..."Serving the Universe!" (insert bed here) "Z100 (Z100) Newww Yoooorrrk!"
Found it! See #10 at this link: JAM: Turbo Z
Unfortunately, John Rio, who played Mr. Leonard, is not listed as a cast member of the upcoming documentary.
You can find more information about John Rio on an old thread about him from 2008.
Is it just on iTunes? Any other platforms?
Mr. Leonard was great...and hilarious. John Rio took the Mr. Leonard character to Texas with him, where at first he worked at 99.5 The Wolf in DFW. He eventually worked in a smaller Texas market and again did bits as Mr. Leonard. When he left that station, it continued to use Mr. Leonard as a character; don't recall whether they used Rio's old bits or someone else posed as Mr. Leonard. That led to Rio suing the station, but I never heard how it turned out.
Yay they are releasing it via Google play! 🥳 🎉
Hell, the story about how Malrite even bought 100.3 is a compelling story in and of itself. Malrite executive Carl Hirsch stumbled upon the signal when traveling from Cleveland to NYC, discovered it could easily be moved to the ESB, and persuaded a reluctant Milt Maltz to "overpay" for it.
Then there's the story about how Scott originally considered wanted to call it "Pirate Radio" before agreeing on Z100...
Not quite. Management had already decided on the call letters WHTZ, knowing it would be CHR and thinking it would be called Hits. Scott Shannon was hired and rejected the Hits moniker, naming it Z100. Around 1990 when it was announced that Scott was coming to Los Angeles, stations there took all of his slogans and formatics, forcing him to do something different. He decided to go with a rock-oriented format and called it Pirate Radio. It did really well out of the gate but turned out to be a flash in the pan.
Not sure about that, but the fact is that Shannon left Z-100 in 1989 to launch Pirate Radio in Los Angeles.
He lasted two years, and then returned to NYC to join WPLJ.
The claim is from John Gorman's 2007 WMMS memoir so YMMV, but of course many WMMS personnel were reassigned to New York to help with Z's launch (this included David Helton, who designed the Z100 logo)...
When Scott Shannon & Cleveland Wheeler were at Q105 in Tampa with their "Morning Zoo" stuff I was on opposite them at a very low rated station. Only took the job because they said if I managed to bring the ratings up against them [even though they never subscribed to ratings but found out from other stations] that they would give me a "substantial raise". After three months I had moved them up by a point and when I went to ask about the raise got a "We don't remember saying that". Left the station with both middle fingers flying. Lesson learned: ALWAYS GET IT IN WRITING! Oh, their ratings went back into the dumpster.
Hopefully it will be included free with Prime Video for Amazon Prime subscribers. Hard to imagine there's tons of people clamoring to pay $13 just to watch a radio documentary.
Or, more precisely, a TV documentary about radio.
At one point in the early years, Len Boom Boom Goldberg from WMMS was the imaging voice on Z100. And a very unusual and distinct voice it was.
That was brutal.
If i remember right jan96 KTU started which was like a dance station but did play alot of the top 20 hits.
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