D.C.'s WTOP Radio restructures newsroom for digital
Wednesday - 12/14/2011, 3:41pm ET
WASHINGTON - One of the nation's top-grossing radio stations is reorganizing and expanding its Washington newsroom to make online news as high a priority as radio.
Washington's WTOP announced plans Wednesday to become a multi-platform news operation by changing the way it does business.
Instead of taking broadcast stories and fitting them onto WTOP's website, the station says it will have digital editors and radio editors working together around the clock to optimize stories for radio, web, mobile and social media all at once.
"No other radio station in America does this. And we are not just talking the talk; we are hiring more people, reevaluating everything we do and making the necessary changes no matter how sacred or ingrained," says Jim Farley, WTOP's vice president of news.
"The future is digital and WTOP will be the leader heading into that future. "
WTOP's 2010 ad revenue topped all other U.S. stations.
As part of the multi-platform digital reorganization and growth strategy, WTOP has named Laurie Cantillo Program Director of WTOP.
Cantillo is a veteran radio programmer and writer who has worked with talent ranging from Oprah to Imus. She was most recently the Program Director of 77 WABC and WABCradio.com in New York, the #1 talk station in the nation.
The new newsroom configuration will be operational by the end of January 2012, and an expanded WTOP Traffic Center will be constructed in the first quarter of 2012. Job postings for available positions are listed at wtop.com.
"While most radio stations in the country are cutting, WTOP is growing. This all began a year and a half ago when we had brainstorm sessions with everybody from the station. 400+ ideas came out of that process," says Hubbard Senior Regional Vice President Joel Oxley.
"The grassroots message boiled down to this: ‘Go Digital and Go Large.' We are doing just that."
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