48 Hours News Show: Coyote & Rhett Walker (Gary Shannon) at Y107

Former jocks often have some pretty interesting nuggets in their boxes of old airchecks and their collection of nostalgia. One of those nuggets was unearthed a few weeks back. Within this blog post is an example of history as it happened that you won’t easily find elsewhere online. Seattle’s Gary Burleigh had in his stash of memorabilia a DVD of the CBS news program 48 Hours dating from December 4, 1991. The title of the episode was Radio Wars and it was anchored by Dan Rather.

When Gary was on-air in the Pacific Northwest, he was known as Gary Shannon or later Gary Burleigh. Rhett Walker was his name down south when  he worked with Coyote McCloud as a key part of the Morning Zoo team at Y107-Nashville,  Gary considers his years in Nashville as the pinnacle of his career, but since that part of his life took place in the south, those of us in the northwest don’t know much about his time at Y107. This video will enlighten us.

48 Hours reported that Coyote and Gary were “shock jocks” of national fame — important enough to be featured on a long segment of network TV.  Compared to many shock jocks I have heard in more recent years, I thought what appeared here was tastefully done; however, the fundamentalist preacher antagonist who appears here obviously did not share my point of view.

When editing this TV show, I left only one short commercial in each break. Doing so gives an overall feel for the events of the era. Coyote and Gary occupy 10 minutes at the beginning of the show. Also note that Y107 bought several spots during this episode of 48 Hours, so they dominate top of the mind awareness. Other notable personalities are seen here including Scott Shannon in NYC, and talk show giant Larry King.

If you watch the full show (47 minutes), you will find it interesting and nostalgic. If you just want to watch Gary and Coyote, then run the first 10 minutes. Your choice, simply click on the video below.