Six FM’s in major markets flipped to All News in 2011 & 2012. Come next week only one will still be airing news content around the clock.
As first reported last week by DCRTV.com, CBS’ 99.1 WNEW Bowie, MD/Washington, DC will add the syndicated Dave Ramsey talker from 8-11pm daily. While WNEW will retain news blocks in other dayparts, the addition of Ramsey and Washington Wizards play-by-play last fall ends the “All News 99.1” moniker the station launched with three years ago. Of course the move comes as the station recorded format highs in the Nielsen Audio PPM ratings in January: a 1.7 share in Washington and 1.8 in Baltimore. Of course that has done nothing to chip away at the dominance of Hubbard’s 103.5 WTOP, which led the Washington market with a 9.2 share.
Great news for our Washington, D.C. area fans — The Dave Ramsey Show can now be heard on @WNEW FM 99.1 weekdays from 8-11 PM EST!
— The Ramsey Show (@RamseyShow) February 23, 2015
INSTANT INSIGHT: As with all spoken word formats, News programming is a slow build. Outside of 105.9 WCFS Chicago, which became a simulcast of 780 WBBM merely to compete with Merlin Media’s defunct “FM News 101.1“, all of the News launches from 2011/2012 are gone. Merlin’s “FM News” attempts in Chicago and New York, Cumulus’ 106.7 WYAY Atlanta has shifted to News/Talk, Radio-One flipped 92.1 KROI Houston to Classic Hip-Hop, and now WNEW adds Talk programming. The Chicago simulcast will see some movement this spring as 780/105.9 will break their simulcasts at times as 780 becomes the new flagship for Cubs baseball, while 105.9 will continue with News programming.
Joseph_Gallant 
Eric Jon Magnuson
Washington’s WTOP was on AM (at 1500) for years, but has now migrated to FM. Currently, it broadcasts on three transmitters: They serve Washington (WTOP-103.5), the distant Western suburbs in Virginia (WWWT-107.7), and Frederick, Maryland (the far northwest suburbs, WTLP-103.9).
Of course, the 1500 signal is directional towards the East (to protect KSTP Minneapolis/St. Paul), and the signal from it’s transmitter site’s just north of Washington misses the far western suburbs, which have seen explosive population growth over the last 20 or so years.
Had the owners of WTOP been able to move their transmitter site west of Washington (which might have allowed 1500’s signal to cover the full market), WTOP still might be on the AM dial and not on FM as well.
As for the old 1500, it’s now carrying Federal News Radio (as WFED).
DCRTV now mentions that WNEW has also added Overnight America (which shouldn’t surprise anyone).
I forgot to mention it earlier, but there was enough of a backlash that Overnight America was quickly dropped.