CBS News will shut down its nearly 100-year-old radio news service. The company said the move is part of a broad restructuring driven by a difficult economic climate and changes in its radio programming strategy.
On the 20th (local time), CBS News announced it would eliminate its radio division and cease broadcast services beginning May 22.
In a letter to staff, CBS News president Tom Sibrowski and editor in chief Barri Weiss called the decision “difficult but necessary.” They said shifts in programming strategy, combined with harsh economic realities, made it impossible to continue the service.
CBS News Radio has operated since September 1927. Early in World War II, famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow cemented his reputation by reporting live from a rooftop in London as German bombs fell. Many of CBS’s most recognized anchors got their start in radio.
Although CBS sold its radio broadcasting arm in 2017, the company continued producing radio news and providing content to roughly 700 affiliate stations nationwide. CBS Radio’s World News Roundup remains the longest-running news radio program in the United States.
The shutdown comes as CBS News prepares another round of large-scale layoffs. The company plans to cut about 6% of its roughly 1,100 employees. Last October, following Paramount’s merger with Skydance, CBS News eliminated about 100 positions, closed its South Africa bureau and canceled the streaming programs CBS Mornings Plus and CBS Evening News Plus.
Weiss and Sibrowski said the news industry is changing rapidly and that CBS must change with it. “New platforms are drawing audiences quickly,” they wrote, and the company is pursuing an ambitious plan of growth and investment to reach those viewers.
Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America’s East and West branches issued a statement blaming the layoffs on “management’s recklessness and greed.” The guilds called the unilateral decision to close CBS News Radio evidence of “the incompetent leadership of Barri Weiss and David Ellison (Paramount CEO)” and argued that, given the damage they say Ellison has done to CBS News in a matter of months, the Ellison family should not be permitted to acquire CNN or other major news outlets.
