Thirty years ago, Howard Stern launched his career as a professional deejay in Briarcliff Manor. The radio world would never be the same.

With Stern and his crew off for holiday break, Sirius satellite radio has been broadcasting the premiere of “The History of Howard Stern� in lieu of his live morning radio show this week. Featuring first-person interviews and narration by Jim Forbes of “Behind the Music� fame, the first 90 minutes of Tuesday’s broadcast alone were dedicated to Stern’s days spinning vinyl in Briarcliff and plugging various businesses and events throughout the Lower Hudson Valley.

“My first radio job really was WRNW in Westchester and that was a very difficult situation for me,� Stern said during the special. “I was not a good broadcaster; I was not a good straight broadcaster, and I wasn’t thought of much.�

Recently completing his second year of a five-year, $500 million contract at Sirius satellite radio, Stern said he launched his full-time career with a $5,000 annual salary on Jan. 1, 1977 at 107.1 FM. He was 11 days shy of his 23rd birthday.

“My first shift, when I got on the air, I was so nervous my hands were shaking,� he said. “The station was empty, thank God, because it was New Year’s morning. I hit the button to play the record, the whole board jams up. I must’ve hit it too hard.�

Reflecting on the incident with sidekicks Robin Quivers and Artie Lange, Stern said he woke up the program director when calling him in the ensuing panic.

“The engineer came in and started yelling at me — this big fat guy — and he fixed it at some point, I guess,� he said. “And all the other jocks heard me and they think I was horrible. I was the laughing stock of the station. The program director was going to fire me, I heard, because I woke him up. And again, I had to beg for his mercy. I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ He goes, ‘You’re terrible; you’re horrible.’ It’s a miracle I sit here today.�

In addition to Briarcliff, check out the “King of All Media’s” direct connections to Armonk, Elmsford, Tarrytown, Bronxville, Scarsdale, White Plains and Yorktown after the break.

Although at the time he was dating Alison Berns, who later became his first wife, he spent the work week of his first year at a monastery and visited her at her apartment in the city on weekends.

“I was living in a monastery up in Armonk, New York, where (rent) was $100 a month, they would feed me and I had to be in by 10 o’clock at night and I was allowed to live in a room that was half the size of (the studio) with a cot. No radio or television allowed, and everyone there took a vow of silence. So, I was living with monks in a monastery for a year, and for me it was tremendously peaceful because it was run by the T.M. movement — which I do, I do transcendental meditation — and it was great.�

To supplement income for his June 1978 wedding, Stern said he worked at a Holiday Inn in Elmsford or Tarrytown to freelance as a private deejay playing disco music. Despite the paycheck of $200 per appearance, he said he was fired within weeks “because I didn’t know any disco.�

Sirius rebroadcast part of his live report from the Westchester movie premiere of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band� at Bronxville’s United Artists theatre in July 1978. The movie studio had made a deal with the radio station, so Stern felt pressure to promote the film, which he said already had bombed in wide release. A sparse crowd uninterested in the unknown deejay’s appearance didn’t help his cause.

“A lot of them have just come out of the movie,� Stern reported from the scene. “Can we have a chorus of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’? One, two, three—�

A teenage girl’s two-word suggestion for Stern got a laugh from the moviegoers.

“This was like the remote from hell,� he said in a later interview.

The Sirius special also referenced Stern’s early WRNW commercials, advertising the station’s “rock hop� event in Yorktown Heights, a bagel shop in Tarrytown, a Briarcliff bakery and a Scarsdale moped dealership. Sirius also rebroadcast a WRNW weather report, during which Stern states it’s “16 degrees in White Plains.�

Stern wrapped up his stint at WRNW in early 1979, opting to take a morning shift on WCCC in Hartford, Conn.

“I knew that I was going to move onto something a little more personality-oriented,� he said.

On his way out the door, a glimpse of the bawdier Stern escaped on the airwaves.

Recalled former WRNW deejay Bruce Figler: “He’s playing a Neil Young song — it’s called ‘Four Strong Winds,’ — and somehow or other, I don’t remember exactly how, he turned it into this song about farts. … About a month later, he was out of there.�

For the Sirius special, Stern said the Westchester gig was a valuable and rewarding experience.

“My father used to say something very encouraging to me,� he said. “He’d say to me, ‘Think of this is your graduate school and they’re paying you, however little it is, to learn,’ and he was right. And guess what? I was in the business. You know? I had a job.�

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)