WTOP

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WTOP, WTOP-FM

Broadcast area	Washington, D.C.
First air date	frequency: January 4, 2006 1951 as WGMS-FM September 18, 1948 as WQQW
Frequency	FM: 103.5 MHz AM: 820 kHz
Format	News
Callsign meaning	"At the TOP of your dial"
Former callsigns	AM 820: WXTR (1999-2006) WQSI (?-1999) WZYQ (1970's-?) FM 103.5: WGMS (1951-2006) WQQW (1948-1951)
Owner	Bonneville International
Website	www.wtopnews.com

WTOP is the only all-news radio station in Washington, DC. The station's primary signal is a monaural FM broadcast at 103.5 MHz under call sign WTOP-FM; its secondary AM outlet, 820 kHz, holds the WTOP call and broadcasts from Frederick, Maryland. The primary WTOP antenna and engineering facility is located on University Blvd. in Wheaton, Maryland.

WTOP is a 24 hour news station with traffic and weather every ten minutes on the 8s. It is affiliated with the CBS Radio Network, and many of its reporters (including Neal Augenstein, Tim Haeck, Hank Silverberg and Tom Foty) also appear on the network.

Sister stations to WTOP include WGMS-FM (Classical 104.1), WTWP (Washington Post Radio) and WFED (Federal News Radio, formerly an online-only service of WTOP).

WTOP is owned by Bonneville International. In 2005, the station began providing podcasts of selected broadcast programs.

As of November, 2006, WTOP is ranked #1 in the Arbitron ratings for stations in the Washington, DC media market.

Contents 1 History 2 Programming and on-air personalities 2.1 Other personalities 2.2 Feature segments 3 Awards 4 External links

[edit] History

WTOP's origins trace back to Brooklyn, New York, as station WTRC in September 25, 1926, on 1250 kilocycles with a power of 50 watts. On August 2, 1927, the station migrated to Mount Vernon Hills, Virginia as WTFF at 1470 kHz. In November 1927, the power of WTFF was increased to 10,000 watts and the frequency changed to 1480 kilocycles.

Purchased by J.S. Vance on January 10, 1929, the callsign was changed to WJSV, reflecting his initials. In June 1932, the station was purchased by CBS and moved from Mount Vernon Hills to Alexandria, Virginia. WJSV was off the air for about three months during this period and resumed broadcasting on October 20, 1932. Arthur Godfrey, who later hosted a variety program on CBS Radio and CBS Television, hosted a program on WJSV called The Sundial on which he honed a laid-back, conversational style that was unusual on radio at the time but came to be common practice for disc jockeys.

The station became the CBS outlet for the Washington, D.C., area. WJSV was a key training ground for pioneering newsman Bob Trout in the 1930s before he became a network correspondent. (One of his broadcasting mentors was Wells (Ted) Church, who later became a CBS News executive.)

In 1940, WJSV's operating power was increased to 50,000 watts, with a new transmitter site built in Wheaton, Maryland. (That site is still in use today.) [1] On March 29, 1941, with the implementation of NARBA, WJSV moved its broadcast frequency from 1460 to 1500 kHz. On March 16, 1943, the call sign was changed to WTOP because its new frequency was now at the "top" of the mediumwave AM band. The Washington Post bought a 55% share in WTOP from CBS in February 1949 and took over the remainder of the station in December 1954.

In the 1960s, WTOP phased out its music programming for a combination of newscasts and telephone talk shows, and eventually dropped its call-in shows to become all-news. Sam Donaldson, who later was on ABC Television, and Jim Bohannon, who took Larry King's place on his all-night radio network talk show after King went to CNN, worked for WTOP in these years. Many other WTOP alumni wound up on network radio and TV, including Ralph Begleiter and Jamie MacIntyre, both of whom went to CNN.

The Post sold WTOP to The Outlet Company company in June 1978 amid the FCC wanting to break up the Post/WTOP cross-ownership arrangement. One month later, WTOP-TV was swapped with the Detroit News's WWJ-TV, and became WDVM-TV. The station is today WUSA-TV, owned by Gannett. The original FM frequency for WTOP-FM was 96.3 MHz, but that frequency was donated to Howard University. That station became WHUR in 1971, a commercially run radio station.

By the early 1990s, WTOP eventually acquired a Warrenton, Virginia, frequency (94.3) for better coverage in the sprawling Virginia suburbs. On April 1, 1998, that frequency was swapped for a stronger signal at 107.7, also licensed to Warrenton. Then in December 2000, WTOP gained another simulcast in Frederick, Maryland with WXTR at 820 kHz, establishing the "WTOP Radio Network."

On January 4, 2006, WTOP station owner Bonneville International announced that WTOP would move to a new primary frequency of 103.5 FM, then held by classical station WGMS (which would itself move to 103.9 and 104.1 FM). The frequencies long-used by WTOP, 1500 kHz and 107.7 MHz (and the low-powered 104.3 FM translator in Leesburg), would be reassigned to the new "Washington Post Radio" for a March 30, 2006, launch date. Ironically, this new partnership also signaled the Post's re-emergence into the radio scene on the very same dial spot WTOP once held.

The stations' respective call signs were changed as of January 11, 2006: the former WTOP pair became WTWP (The Washington Post) and WTOP's new primary stations (formerly WGMS-FM and WXTR) assumed the WTOP calls. An HD Radio digital subchannel of the 103.5 carrier continues to broadcast classical music.

During WTOP weather reports, ABC 7 Super Doppler is featured from local TV station WJLA Channel 7.

[edit] Programming and on-air personalities

This information is current as of the summer of 2006.

Monday-Friday:

• 12 a.m.-5 a.m.: Dean Lane (except Mondays)
• 5 a.m.-10 a.m.: Bruce Alan & Richard Day
• 10 a.m.-2 p.m.: Mark Lewis
• 2 p.m.-7 p.m.: Shawn Anderson & Diane Kepley
• 7 p.m.-12 a.m.: Dimitri Sotis, Adrienne Mitchell, and Nathan Hager

Saturday:

• 12 a.m.-5 a.m.: Dean Lane
• 5 a.m.-11 a.m.: Mark Lewis and Evan Haning
• 11 a.m.-5 p.m.: Rosemary Frisino-Toohey and Ira Mellman
• 5 p.m.-11 p.m.: Adrienne Mitchell and Veronica Robinson
• 11 p.m.-4 a.m.: (Sunday morning): Barton Eckert
• 4 a.m.-5 a.m.: Church of God Radio Broadcast

Sunday:

• 5 a.m.-11 a.m.: Dave Brown and Evan Haning
• 11 a.m.-5 p.m.: Ira Mellman and Adrienne Mitchell
• 5 p.m.-12 a.m.: Nathan Hager and Veronica Robinson
• 12 a.m.-5 a.m.: TBD

[edit] Other personalities

• David Burd (Offbeat reporter, weekend mornings on WTWP, known as The Duvet Muse)
• Darci Marchese
• Debbie Feinstein
• Paul Brandus
• Mark Segraves (Investigative reporter)
• Mark Plotkin (Political commentator)
• Ira Mellman
• Veronica Robinson
• Sharon Rae
• Dave McConnell (Capitol Hill Correspondent)
• Derek Williams
• Hank Silverberg (Northern Virginia Correspondent)
• Howard Dicus
• Ivan Scott (Pentagon Correspondent)
• Kristi King
• Neal Augenstein
• Tom Foty
• JJ Green (National Security Correspondent)
• Adam Tuss
• Eve Chen
• Jeff Seldin
• Frank Herzog
• Ralph Segal (Traffic)
• Bob Marbourg (Traffic, PM rush hour)
• Lisa Baden (Traffic, AM rush hour): she is an employee of Metro Traffic.
• Robert Workman (Traffic)
• Joe Conway (Traffic)
• Jim Russ (Traffic)
• Julie Wright (Traffic)
• Eric Foster (Traffic)
• Stan Thomas (Traffic)
• Bill Michaels (Traffic)
• Byron Kerr (Sports)
• Craig Heist (Sports)
• Dave Johnson (Sports Director, AM drive)
• Jonathan Warner (Sports)
• George Wallace (Sports)

[edit] Feature segments

• Man About Town - Bob Madigan
• Mike Causey's Federal Report
• GEICO Sensible Alternatives
• CDW-G Trends in Technology
• The WTOP Car Report - J.J. Gertler
• Mike McGrath, Garden Editor
• Joe Barber, entertainment editor
• Call For Action - Shirley Rooker

[edit] Awards

• 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award (National) for Best Large Market Radio News Website
• 2003 Edward R. Murrow Award (National) for Best Large Market Radio News Website
• 2003 Edward R. Murrow Award (National) for Best Spot News - Coverage of the D.C. Area Sniper.

[edit] External links

• WTOP website
• WTOP Wireless
• WJLA ABC 7 Website
• History of WTOP
• Query the FCC's AM station database for WTOP
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WTOP-FM