Lesley Lotto’s short-lived career as a PD/ND at a small town station in Montana gave her an idea: offer an affordable, reliable news product for small-market stations. As President of Remote News Service (https://remotenewsservice.com/) the NYC-based operation now boasts more that 80 stations in various size markets across the nation.
“If I call a station and they say they have somebody on staff I don’t ever say ‘well I could do it cheaper.’ I want those people to keep their jobs,” said Lotto. “Where I come in is for stations which have totally given up on news. I let them know that there are advertising dollars there, so you should have news.”
Local news is the primary focus of RNS according to Lotto, who is also one of the nine anchors serving clients. “We work diligently with stations when we first start to see exactly where they want us to cover, we cull online, then eventually get all the same press releases and make all the same contacts the stations make locally.”
“We gather all of our news online, try very hard to verify stories that may seem ‘off’ — in this new environment of ‘fake news,’ you can never be too careful,” said Lotto. “We rewrite everything, record, produce, and send, via our WordPress site or ftp at the deadline needed by our client stations.”
Lotto is keenly aware of market forces; the need to be affordable and the ability to expand. “We used to have ‘base rates’ or ‘standard rates,’ but after the major recession we noted many stations needed less news or couldn’t really afford much, so we meet stations where they’re at.” She added, “I just finished the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and I’m now targeting university and college stations as part of my growth plan.”
