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CBS Radio News Closure: Effects on KCBS and San Francisco

According to Gemini AI (take it for what it is worth), here is the last day schedule. Is KCBS going to carry any of this? I am posting this in a few of the CBS Radio threads to see if we can find a station that will carry the retrospective.

[deleted - AI misinformation]​

 
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BarryATL said:
According to Gemini AI (take it for what it is worth), here is the last day schedule. Is KCBS going to carry any of this? I am posting this in a few of the CBS Radio threads to see if we can find a station that will carry the retrospective.

Final Day Programming Schedule (Eastern Time)​

  • 5:00 AM – 7:00 PM | Regular Hourly News Wheel
    Standard operations continue through the final broadcast day. Top-of-the-hour and bottom-of-the-hour newscasts will air as scheduled.
  • 7:00 PM – 7:31 PM | The Final Regular Newscast Cycle
    The final standard, full-length news feed delivered to affiliates. This includes the closing evening news briefs and final regional network audio feeds.
  • 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM | The Final Top-of-the-Hour & 99-Year Retrospective
    • 8:00 PM: The absolute final live, top-of-the-hour national newscast.
    • 8:06 PM: Immediately following the news, the network will transition into its official one-hour commemorative retrospective. This special program highlights nearly a century of network history, featuring archival audio from Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Robert Trout, and Charles Osgood, alongside reflections from current correspondents.
  • 9:00 PM – 11:31 PM | Retrospective Encores & Final Sign-Off
    The final block of airtime is reserved for continuous automated clearance. The network will loop the historical retrospective and final news block for West Coast affiliates and stations delayed by evening sports programming.
  • 11:31 PM | Final Feed Cut & Master Shutdown
    The master control feed out of the New York Broadcast Center will be permanently disconnected, officially ending CBS News Radio operations after 99 years on the air.

The Midnight Transition (May 23)​

Immediately following the CBS shutdown, the automated satellite and digital feeds will clear the way for successor networks. For instance, the newly formed Worldwide News Network (backed by Red Apple Media and featuring several displaced CBS Radio anchors like Michael Wallace and Cooper Lawrence) is scheduled to debut its brand-new 24-hour news feed precisely at midnight.
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I have scoured the internet trying to confirm this information, and there is nothing backing up any of this. Is there another source for this, besides AI?
 
El Zilcho said:
KCBS sisters WCCO and WBBM have made the switch to ABC TOH as of today. Now, it’s a wait-and-see if KCBS and KNX follow or buck the trend.
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KNX has switched to ABC TOH starting at 2 p.m. today (Thursday), with their midday anchor even explaining on air the change about to happen just minutes before it. Seems likely KCBS will too although at the same hour, they are still with CBS TOH.
 
El Zilcho said:
KNX has switched to ABC TOH starting at 2 p.m. today (Thursday), with their midday anchor even explaining on air the change about to happen just minutes before it. Seems likely KCBS will too although at the same hour, they are still with CBS TOH.
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Or they could still go the route of WINS.

KCBS and WINS are Audacy's two highest rated All News outlets. It also seems rather weird to have ABC news on KCBS.
 
As it turns out, then, the last World News Roundup heard on KCBS was yesterday. Wish I had thought to record it.

Here's what happened this morning:

7 am: Steve Scott throws to the World News Roundup.

After the music bed for the legal ID fades out, silence.

Seven seconds pass. Steve says, "No, really, it is 7 o'clock".

Five more seconds of silence pass. Steve says, "All right. Apparently, there is no CBS World News Roundup at the moment. Good morning, I'm Steve Scott, and we will move on with news from around the Bay Area".

And that was it...all local content for the eight minutes usually taken up by the World News Roundup.

Steve handled it very smoothly. I think most listeners tuning in at 7:01 or thereafter wouldn't have noticed that anything had gone wrong.
 
Mark Roberts said:
As it turns out, then, the last World News Roundup heard on KCBS was yesterday. Wish I had thought to record it.

Here's what happened this morning:

7 am: Steve Scott throws to the World News Roundup.

After the music bed for the legal ID fades out, silence.

Seven seconds pass. Steve says, "No, really, it is 7 o'clock".

Five more seconds of silence pass. Steve says, "All right. Apparently, there is no CBS World News Roundup at the moment. Good morning, I'm Steve Scott, and we will move on with news from around the Bay Area".

And that was it...all local content for the eight minutes usually taken up by the World News Roundup.

Steve handled it very smoothly. I think most listeners tuning in at 7:01 or thereafter wouldn't have noticed that anything had gone wrong.
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Seeing @Steve Scott himself has also acknowledged this post, I trust him to handle virtually anything with grace, deftness and professionalism. Probably trust him to help replace a flat tire too if it came to that.
 
Steve Scott said:
You’re very kind. Thank you.
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I also had the station on in the minutes preceding 7AM. Wanted to catch the penultimate WNR, but instead caught that technical glitch and how deftly (perfect word, Mark!) Steve dealt with it.

My thought in that moment was, this man had the poise and class to make it to WCBS Newsradio 880 and last there for close to two decades. We're lucky he's brought that skill set to KCBS. He's earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as Charles Osgood, Lou Adler, Jim Donnelly and so many other names and voices I remember from my years in New York City.
 
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By the way, this whole situation reminds me of Molly Ivans's famous quote regarding George H. W. Bush: "He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." Tell me that doesn't apply to David Ellison too.
 
Say what you will about current ownership. The fact is the company gave up on radio ten years ago.

I have friends who used to work at the cable channels. That's where the real collapse has happened. Zombie TV.
 
Two things: (a) I have KCBS on my office tuner, and concurrently I'm streaming the "CBS News Radio" link shown above on headphones. The stream is running the CBS 24/7 continuously and did NOT break for the radio hourly.

(b) KCBS effectively hasn't changed anything in their TOH, except in saying "ABC News covers the world next" instead of "CBS". No more top-of-hour bong, just the ABC sounder. It will take a little getting used to. Also, they only take the first segment of ABC's news, which is a minute shorter than CBS was, so they're into their local content a minute sooner.

Am I the only one who thinks this was Audacy's way of giving the middle finger to the "new" CBS, by dropping CBS a day early?

CBS Radio dies not with a bang, not even with a whimper, but by expiring all alone by themselves. Sad.

(Cross-posted from another thread because it's specific to KCBS and this is the KCBS thread.)
 
Weiserguy said:
Also, they only take the first segment of ABC's news, which is a minute shorter than CBS was, so they're into their local content a minute sooner.
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CBS once used that as a selling point. Affiliates got 3 minutes of solid news before a commercial. ABC only does 2.

I think at the time one of the other nets only did one minute before the first spot break.
 
Weiserguy said:
Am I the only one who thinks this was Audacy's way of giving the middle finger to the "new" CBS, by dropping CBS a day early?
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I doubt they even thought that deeply about it. Better to jump to the new system a day early before the long weekend to avoid any confusion or tech issues.
 


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