RIP CBS Radio News

[kingchuck69]

CBS News shutters its storied radio news service after nearly a century, ending an era

Today CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country, and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Channel98]

CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, at 2:38 PM Eastern time on November 22, 1963, interrupted an episode of As The World Turns to report that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Cronkite was visibly upset when he later reported that Kennedy had died. We all were,

 

[sadchild]

Must not have been radical or partisan enough for the current society of divided wingnuts.

 

[Channel98]

CBS News Radio provides top-of-the-hour newscasts and public-affairs programming to more than 500 radio stations nationwide. In April of 1927, Columbia Records parent company Columbia Phonograph Company invested in Chicago-based network United Independent Broadcasters, which had launched three months earlier. It was renamed Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. In 1928, Williams S. Paley became president of the network and renamed it Columbia Broadcasting System. Among the anchors and reporters who worked at CBS News Radio are Lowell Thomas, Edward R. Murrow, Dan Rather, Dallas Townsend, Douglas Edwards, Mark Knoller, Christopher Glenn and John Charles Daly. CBS Television began July 21, 1931, with experimental station W2XAB in New York City. W2XAB became WCBW-Channel 2 in 1941 and WCBS in 1946. CBS now owns and operates 28 television stations in 17 markets.

Don't worry – none of this will be on the final exam.

 

[Channel98]

CBS Radio affiliates including WBBM/WCFS in Chicago are assuring their listeners that the news format will continue:

CBS News Radio service is shutting down, but WBBM Newsradio is here to stay – what you need to know

CBS News on Friday announced a new round of layoffs and that includes the shutdown of CBS News Radio. 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.

www.audacy.com

And yes, the story calls 105.9 FM "105.9 AM." Yikes!

 

[Madison]

A bit off topic but I used to like the CBS Radio Mystery Theater with EG Marshall at 10 or 11pm on WBBM

 

[sadchild]

If 1030 WBZ AM Boston was CBS News Radio in the early 80s, I used to hear it regularly in my step-father's car.

 

[Channel98]

WBZ has been a CBS Radio affiliate since June 6, 1995. From 1936 to 1990, the CBS Radio affiliate in Boston was WEEI (which is now Salem Radio Network affiliate "590 The Word" WEZE).

WBZ NewsRadio 1030 - Boston's News Radio

WBZ NewsRadio is the home of Traffic and Weather Together on the 3s. Breaking news when it happens. Boston's source for local news. Listen on your radio at 1030AM in Boston or take us anywhere with the free iHeart app.

wbznewsradio.iheart.com

 

[sadchild]

A requirement for being a DJ on WEZE should be constant shortness of breath

 

[Channel98]

I wonder if Wheezer (Bobby Hutchins) from the Our Gang comedies ever worked at WEZE.

 

[kingchuck69]

WBZ has been a CBS Radio affiliate since June 6, 1995. From 1936 to 1990, the CBS Radio affiliate in Boston was WEEI (which is now Salem Radio Network affiliate "590 The Word" WEZE).

WBZ NewsRadio 1030 - Boston's News Radio

WBZ NewsRadio is the home of Traffic and Weather Together on the 3s. Breaking news when it happens. Boston's source for local news. Listen on your radio at 1030AM in Boston or take us anywhere with the free iHeart app.

wbznewsradio.iheart.com

WBZ Radio was NBC until 1956. In 1980, they added ABC.

 

[Channel98]

Here is an excerpt – which Gary Owens once defined as "a former cerpt" – from an article in today's Los Anmgeles Times:

"The announcement last Friday of the end of CBS News Radio was met with elegiac tributes to the service that built the foundation of William Paley's company nearly 100 years ago and brought the heroic work of journalists such as Edward R. Murrow to millions of listeners. But for the 700 affiliates carrying CBS News Radio, the concerns are more practical as they are faced with finding new national programming that will replace it. CBS Radio News will go silent on May 22.

The local all-news radio stations carrying the service posted messages on social media to assure listeners that they were not disappearing – only the national newscasts that were provided by CBS. KNX, the all-news station in Los Angeles that has carried CBS programming since 1936, posted a lengthy segment on the impending closure and explained how 'KNX News is not going anywhere.'

KNX was owned by CBS until 2017. The New York-based Audacy, under its previous name Entercom, acquired the CBS radio stations in 2017. KNX and the other Audacy news stations such as WBBM in Chicago, KCBS in San Francisco and WWJ in Detroit remained CBS affiliates, carrying the hourly CBS newscasts. The Audacy all-news outlets, which reach around 9 million listeners a month, provided about one-third of U.S. coverage for CBS News Radio, the most of any station group carrying the service. Audacy said it will find a replacement for CBS News Radio to provide national and international coverage, noting that the mission of its all-news stations will not be affected."

What happens to L.A.'s KNX and other stations when CBS News Radio goes away?

The end of CBS News Radio sends local outlets scrambling for a new national news source.

www.latimes.com