CBS News Radio clearances have been relatively low for decades compared to ABC and others. I know that, at one time, CBS had the reputation of being somewhat inflexible, requiring that the news at the top of the hour be carried at the top of the hour, save for sports and other events. But I doubt that's the case any more. It's putting out a good quality product. There's still at least a little prestige associated with it. So what's the deal? Outside of the legacy O&O's, it's hard to find. In Denver, it's on Salem's KNUS...now there's a combination...during off-hours. (KNUS actually does have local newsreaders.) When GE still owned KOA, that station was the CBS radio affiliate for Denver. In Albuquerque, it's on KIVA, the station I couldn't find last year when I was in the city because it was broadcasting at 1660 instead of its licensed frequency of 1600. (KIVA has since fixed that; see posts I made last year.) In Kansas City, it's bounced around for decades, having been, at various times, on KAYQ (1190), KCMO (810), KMBZ (980); and....? I don't know where it is now if it's present at all. KTRH in Houston was a CBS radio affiliate up until the late 1980s; I thought CBS radio news had been on KPRC at a subsequent time but, again, I don't know if CBS radio is in the Houston market at all now.
You look at this page -
Where can I find CBS News Radio? - and you see mobile apps, social media presence, streaming audio platforms, webpages, and then, as if it were an afterthought: "Of course, we're on the air on over 400 radio stations across the United States." That comes along with a map that's hardly readable and no actual list of stations. The map is a static image and isn't clickable. There's no lookup function. It seems that they know they have a distribution problem and have shifted their priority to more direct-to-consumer platforms. That's not a bad idea but I have to wonder how they can sustain a news operation like that.