If you ever want to make your boss’s jaw drop to the floor, just tell them you have increased whatever you’re doing by 3,800 percent. That’s exactly what David Caplan did.
“We saw a nearly 3,800 percent increase in overall traffic to our digital site,” Caplan said. “From the moment I started, we skyrocketed. A lot of that was fueled by Covid and other issues, but we’ll take it.”
Caplan joined 1010 WINS in June 2018 and last year he became the station’s digital executive.
“We’re the permanent news brand in the city,” he said. “We’re fast-paced, we’re a big part of New York’s DNA.”
Ben Mevorach is Vice President of New York news, overseeing both 1010/92.3 WINS and WCBS 880. Ivan Lee is brand manager for both stations. When Caplan told them about the dramatic jump in digital users, Mevorach and Lee may have believed they misheard Caplan.
“I don’t know where all those people came from, but I know they were extremely pleased with the results. I do think I was the perfect hire to improve the digital footprint; to give WINS digital a makeover. The right person to look at things from a different perspective.”
Caplan said digital is a different language and radio stations need to be fluent in that language. He explained how during his initial discussions with Mevorach and Lee, they let him know a lot needed to be done on the digital end of things.
“The station has historically had that ticker tape sound,” Caplan said. “For many years the slogan of the station has been, ‘Give us 22 minutes and we’ll give you the world.’ It’s all news all the time.”
Mevorach and Lee needed someone that understood the magnitude of digital communications. WINS wasn’t competing online with other stations. Caplan felt they needed more content with more elements to them.
“We provide a lot of local news,” Caplan said. “We’ll put in some sensational news, some entertainment news, business news. We’re a news organization first, and digital needed to be overhauled.”
Caplan said audiences for digital content are different from radio listeners.
“Online skews younger,” he explained. “It’s a completely different medium. I’ve found that different stories online work better.”
Caplan sees the internet as vast as a galaxy. There doesn’t seem to be a roof.
“We can push as many stories as we want,” Caplan said. “Radio has a finite space. We have to understand how people are consuming news. Maybe you’re not in a relaxed atmosphere and would like your news hard and fast. When you’re listening to something digital, you could be hanging out with friends.”
For the digital component, Caplan said bite-sized news pieces do well online. Pieces tend to be shorter. They will do longer feature stories and cover some stories more in-depth, but short blasts are key
“I’m constantly looking at other station’s sites to see what they’re doing well and for what I think they’re not doing well. I’ve seen sites where they weren’t attacking digital content. They lacked video, lacked audio. They just weren’t very meaty.”
Caplan’s background includes celebrity magazines like People, and Star. It’s at those jobs he honed his eye for the visual.
“As a former editor, I’m very cognizant of how important visual elements are,” he said. “I want a lead photo to a story to be appealing. We’ve had to learn to rework headlines. I want to see a tightened copy. Change the ways we were engaging people.”
Caplan came from ABC News and handled their digital efforts. Before ABC, he worked at People magazine and US Weekly. He was also managing editor of the TMZ website Too Fab. All these experiences have helped Caplan become a master at the digital end of broadcasting. He’s integrated more entertainment stories than they were covering when he arrived.
“There’s room for reporters to do both radio and digital,” Caplan said. “Although some radio reporters may not be suited to be a digital reporter.”
News is collected from everywhere. It comes from Twitter, Facebook, and all other social media.
“We are data miners,” Caplan explained. “We have system alerts for breaking news. We keep in touch with law enforcement. We’ll call the NYPD for stories, and talk to the DA. As a newsroom, we communicate a lot so we don’t have two reporters calling the NYPD on the same story.”
Ivan Lee might tell Caplan he has a great story about a family on Long Island. Caplan will listen to that report, and if he thinks it’s a good fit he’ll make it original to the digital side. He can add more detail through video and additional sound.
“We’re always looking for different ways to relate to our audience,” Caplan said. “Crime stories are always of interest. We’ve got lots of crime stories in New York. Stories about animals do well. We’re learning about the audience as much as they learn about us.”
Caplan said early in his career he was lucky to work with people who were driven. People that instilled a drive for news. He said TMZ was an incredible place to work.
“Harvey Levin was great to work for. A force to be reckoned with.”
Caplan believes his varied background has been a tremendous asset to his career. “I think some concerns were that I had too much entertainment background and not enough news experience. But they took a chance on me.”
He said the digital medium allows him to be a little more creative. Caplan said if he feels like it, he’ll put a random exclamation point in a headline. He’ll try anything to pull the reader further into the site. Do things that pull the reader in. There’s more flexibility creatively on the digital side.
“You do need to differentiate yourself,” Caplan said. “On the digital side we might do a story on Pete Davidson spotted with a new girlfriend. He is from Staten Island so we can work that into our coverage.”
He’s constantly watching the digital numbers, as well as his competitors.
There’s different content on the news station. He knows 880 has longer form reporting, regular news, and traffic updates. It’s also the home of the New York Mets.
“If listeners want more information on a story the radio station has done, they can go to the website.”
Caplan said he doesn’t want to do something different just because it’s different. He’s all about content and news New Yorkers want to know.
“If the radio side covers a story on a stabbing in the subway, we can add more with visuals. A reporter can go down and create another story through the audio and visuals they bring back.”
When Caplan arrived in his position he didn’t see a lot that needed fixing.
“It was really about changing how stories were presented,” he said. “At first we just threw some stories out there and saw what kind would stick. We created a newsletter to send content out daily. If someone doesn’t like getting alerts they can opt-out.”
Caplan said it’s critical to get brand recognition by any means. He encourages other media outlets around the country to pick up his stories. The story not only provides content, it establishes WINS as the source. That perpetuates the brand.
“Last week the Mayo Clinic re-tweeted one of our interviews about an Alzheimer’s drug,’ Caplan said. “They reached over 2 million followers with our story. Just think of all the eyeballs that came across our call letters.”
