Dan Ronan Pulls Off a Rare D.C. Radio Double: WTOP to WAMU, Same Morning, Same Antenna

Something unusual happened in Washington radio early Monday morning—and longtime Washington broadcaster Dan Ronan was at the center of it.

Ronan was anchoring the overnight shift at WTOP, working from midnight to 5 AM. At about 3 AM, his phone rang. It was his supervisor at NPR. One of the Morning Edition anchors had called out sick, and NPR needed Ronan to step in.

After finishing up at WTOP just after 5 AM, Ronan got in his car and drove to NPR headquarters. There, he anchored the national newscasts for the 7 AM and 8 AM Morning Edition broadcasts, which are also carried on WAMU.

There’s another twist: Both WTOP and  WAMU, share the same antenna system on the American University campus. So within the span of two hours, Ronan was on two different stations, both using the same antenna array—not many people can say they did that!

The double shift also meant a quick mental gear change. “They’re both newscasts,” Ronan said, “but the style and the timing are pretty different. As I was driving from WTOP to NPR, I had to think about how I was going to approach the newscast on Morning Edition after doing five hours on WTOP.”

After pulling off this rare D.C. radio double, Ronan said what you’d expect from any broadcaster who just wrapped up back-to-back shifts on two of the city’s biggest stations: “When I got home Monday morning, I was pretty tired.”