Photo by yospyn

Back when I first arrived in the District, 99.1 FM was a well-respected alternative rock radio station. Then, in 2005, the station surprisingly changed formats and became El Zol, an all-Latino music station. Late last year, in yet another dramatic format change, EL Zol was moved to 107.9 FM and 99.1 FM was set aside for an all-news station.

Over the weekend, listeners turning their dials to the old home of WHFS and El Zol were treated to the inaugural broadcasts of WNEW, a CBS-owned station that seeks to compete with region leader WTOP (103.5 FM) on news, weather and traffic. According to a Post writeup on the new station, which kicked off its broadcasting life with 39 staffers, WNEW seems to want to get you that traffic and weather info even more quickly than WTOP can:

“The goal is not to be WTOP,” said Sanchez, a veteran of news stations in Miami and New York. “The idea is, you punch the button and you’ll find out what’s happening now. You don’t always get that on WTOP. I hear a lot of process on WTOP — national-security stories, political minutiae. They can sound like a very glossy magazine. That’s great, but when something is happening, you don’t pick up a magazine to find out about it.”

WNEW intends to spend less time reporting on developments at the Pentagon or Capitol Hill and more on a breakdown on the Red Line, adds Michelle Dolge, the station’s news director. “We don’t want our people to be in here,” she said. “We want them in the neighborhoods.”

According to the Post, WTOP’s “news and traffic on the eights” will seem tame when compared to WNEW’s promise to offer listeners updates on the weather every four minutes. (Traffic will be every 10 minutes.)

So what are some initial reactions? According to emails sent to DCRTV.com, the region’s go-to website on all the inside news on local TV and radio you could want, not particularly good. One listener called it an “amateur sounding station,” while another was less sparing in their critique — it “sounds like bad high school station.” For one listener, though, WNEW is off to a running start, and WTOP better be prepared: “Except for several expected ‘startup moments’ of dead air Sunday, WNEW has a great sound with energy, flow and credible content. I’m sure it’ll quickly get better and make WTOP sound tired and ‘yesterday’ (unless TOP gets it seriously in gear ASAP).”

WTOP clearly has a head start in the race for all-news radio leader in the region, and they don’t seem above being cheeky about keeping it. CBSWashington.com — which could have been used by WNEW — redirects to WTOP’s website, and the Twitter account @CBSWashington features a WTOP logo as its avatar.