Well, that didn’t take long.
Veteran DJ Scott Shannon, who announced his exit from WPLJ’s popular and long-running “Scott & Todd” morning show on Feb. 7, has landed at WCBS FM (101.1) as the oldies station’s morning-drive guy. Shannon kicks off “Scott Shannon in the Morning” this Monday, March 3 (6-10 a.m.). He’ll be joined by Mr. G. (weather) and traffic reporter Joe Nolan.
Dan Taylor, who’s been anchoring the morning-drive slot, will move to 10 a.m.
I asked Shannon about his sudden announcement to leave ’PLJ after 23 years — which caught outsiders by surprise.
“It was time. Todd is very qualified to do the show on his own and so am I,” he told me. “We worked together longer than most teams even think about working together and it was just time for me to leave. He’s the younger guy and he’s felt like he could do [the show] alone for a couple of years now . . . I learned from him and he learned from me.
“I really needed to reboot my career and do something else.”
Shannon says he “never” considered leaving New York after ending his run at ’PLJ. “I’m a New Yorker. I didn’t retire from radio, I only retired from ’PLJ,” he said. And what about competing directly now, starting Monday, against his old partner, Todd Pettengill?
“We’ll both be on the air at the same time. Will there be some looky-loos back and forth? Yeah,” he said. “But the music [on the two stations] is so different and there are a lot of great morning shows in this market. There’s something for everyone.”