More on the demise of CBS News Radio
There were a number of figurative shrugs of the shoulder over Friday's announcement that CBS News was shutting down all of their radio operations on May 22. Yet there was also significant chatter about the demise of the network that once was the broadcasting home of Edward R. Morrow and Walter Cronkite. Then again, as we reported yesterday, the current CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was quoted as offering Cronkite as a "symbol of old thinking," stating if the network continues with its current traditions, “we’re toast.”
Edward R. Murrow (Globe Photos), Walter Cronkite
Other famous voices from the past include Howard K. Smith (later at ABC), Harry Reasoner, Robert Trout, Lowell Thomas, Douglas Edwards, and Christopher Glenn.
Howard K. Smith (Getty Images), Harry Reasoner
Robert Trout, Douglas Edwards (CBS Photo Arcrhive)
Lowell Thomas (Brittanica), Christopher Glenn
It's worth noting what's being said around the country, particularly at some long-time CBS News Radio affiliates.
At top rated WBBM-Chicago, the station assured their listeners they weren't abandoning the all-news format:
A note from the Newsroom:
CBS News on Friday announced a new round of layoffs and that includes the shutdown of CBS News Radio after nearly 100 years.
So what does that mean for WBBM Newsradio 780 and 105.9 AM? Most importantly, WBBM Newsradio 780 AM and 105.9 FM are NOT going anywhere.
We’ll still be here, bringing you top local, state, national and international news, just like we have for decades. For part of that long history, we were owned by CBS. That changed in 2017 when CBS sold its local radio stations to the company that is now Audacy.
After that change, we remained a CBS network affiliate, which means that we played CBS News on our station, along with our own newsroom’s coverage. When CBS Radio’s service shuts down on May 22, our listeners won’t hear those anymore.
What you will hear is WBBM Newsradio’s team – including your favorite local anchors covering the news, traffic, weather, sports and business. That’s a lot of stuff!
An almost verbatim statement was also offered at KYW-Philadelphia, though they offered a slightly different conclusion:
We very much appreciate all of our listeners. Stay tuned!
WTOP-Washington D.C. primarily quoted from an AP News story, though it did offer a bit more background plus an interview with former CBS News anchor Dan Rather:
CBS News cut some of its radio programming late last year, including its “Weekend Roundup” and “World News Roundup Late Edition,” in an attempt to keep the service going.
“Given the way things are going, I was saddened but I wasn’t surprised by it,” said Rather, who succeeded network legend Walter Cronkite in 1981 and anchored for 25 years.
When Rather covered the civil rights era for CBS News during the 1960s, he said he would file reports as frequently as a dozen times a day. Cronkite told America on television that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated; Rather relayed the news for radio.
“Radio was considered an equal responsibility to television,” Rather, now 94, said in an interview.
KIRO-Seattle was once the home of CBS News commentator Dave Ross, who retired in 2024. He was interviewed on Friday about the upcoming demise of the CBS Radio network:
“I’m not shocked by anything anymore, so I guess I can’t say it was a gut punch for me,” Ross told “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “I freelanced for them for 27 years and filled in for Charles Osgood, my own commentary for them, so I guess it does have a special place in my career. It is, definitely, and certainly is, a legendary network from Edward R. Murrow on down.”
Ross provided some lesser-known details about the actual CBS News Radio facility, noting the iconic brick wall behind CBS mornings as one of the things that is hard to let go.
“It was a shoestring operation for a while. It was bought out by a company called Westwood One. I don’t pretend to understand all the corporate decisions that go into this. But 524, West 57th Street, where the studios were, was an old [milk processing plant], and that’s where the radio network was located, just downstairs from the TV network,” Ross said. “I thought it was the coolest thing for this super glitzy network to be located in an old brick dairy. Now that brick wall you see on CBS mornings, that’s not a set. That’s the actual back wall of the old dairy. And so, like a lot of things, I’m sorry to see it go.”
Of course, what about our local outlet, specifically KNX? Former VP and Director of News Programming and currently midday anchor for the all-news outlet posted his thoughts on social media:
But this is a huge, defining moment. CBS is America’s longest running broadcast news service. It is the foundation that built not just that network, but pioneered the standards that made broadcast news and radio news, the most trusted source for Americans to this day. One question I’m getting a lot is what happens to KNX? We were owned by CBS for many years, but that hasn’t been the case in about a decade. In 2017, CBS sold its radio stations to the company that would become Audacy. We stayed on as a network affiliate, so you still hear CBS reporting on the air, primarily at the top of every hour. So when CBS Radio News ends in May, that goes away. A lot of the journalists we consider colleagues will be laid off.
So what comes next? That’s unclear. We don’t know if we will become an affiliate of another network yet. But we do know one thing, and that is a lot of the national and world news that you hear on KNX right now is already produced by our local team here in L.A., and that will not change. But it’s a sad day for news, it’s a sad day for our friends at CBS, and, you know, unfortunately these types of discussions, these hard conversations about the future, are happening at every news organization, everywhere in the country, and really in the world.
There are other Audacy news and information stations utilizing CBS News Radio, including WINS-New York, KCBS-San Francisco, KRLD-Dallas, WWJ-Detroit, WCCO-Minneapolis, among many others, plus WBZ-Boston, owned by iHeart. There is no official word from Audacy about their future options after CBS News Radio ceases operations on May 22. At KNX, the news about CBS News Radio was "greeted" with the surprise by the station's staff.
Locally, KFI uses ABC News Radio, The Patriot 1150 (KEIB) offers Fox News Rundown, plus KFI utilizes iHeart's 24 / 7 News service, which includes NBC News Radio. At this moment, KNX's traditional options seem limited, though there's been suggestions about the Audacy news and information stations across the country more actively promote sharing stories with one another.
The KFBK bumper sticker, worth a $15 prize if they called out your license plate, circa mid-70s.
A personal note. Many, many years ago when I was a stringer (I was officially the "Yolo County Correspondent" which paid $3 / story, I digress) for KFBK, I was once offered the opportunity to sit at the anchor desk. For whatever reason, that didn't happen. In my imagination, I'd practice talking up to the top-of-the-hour "bong" and then the stinger which intro'd the CBS network news. Not that I'll be back on the air anytime soon, but that option is now only in the past, as it will be for many hundreds, if not thousands of radio journalists and announcers.
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