Thursday, December 15, 2011 - 1:10pm
Hubbard Radio's WTOP (Washington D.C., 103.5 FM) has restructuerd and expanded its workforce to "unify digital and broadcast staff." The station says its aiming to "redefine the news workflow. Instead of the traditional model which takes broadcast content and tries to fit it into a digital hole, WTOP’s strategy will focus on the creation of news stories at the beginning of a process. A story’s execution will be determined at its origin. It will then be optimized for all the distribution platforms WTOP offers: radio, web, Facebook, Twitter and mobile."
The Washington Post reports that WTOP intends to "to make online news as high a priority as radio and in some cases break news online first."
"The future is digital and WTOP will be the leader heading into that future," said VP of News and Programming Jim Farley.
One of the many changes includes having "both a digital editor and a radio editor working together 24/7," said Farley. "No other radio station in America does this."
Here's just a few of the moves WTOP has announced: John Meyer, WTOP's current director of digital operations moves to the newsroom as the new architect of the social and digital strategy. News director Mike McMearty will become senior news director, as assistant news director Mitchell Miller is promoted to news director. Digital editor Gary Emerling becomes the senior digital editor. And former WABC PD Laurie Cantillo joins WTOP to serve in the same role.
"The moves signal a growing digital role at WTOP, which already attracts 600,000 page views and 122,000 unique visitors on a typical day," writes Inside Radio.
You can find more coverage from the Washington Post here, Radio-Info here, Talkers.com here and subscribe to Inside Radio here to read their coverage.