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CBS News Radio Closed

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TheBigA said:
The reason CBS is getting out of this business is because the advertising isn't enough to cover the expense.
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I don't know for certain, of course, but I'm inclined to agree with @secondchoice. This closure feels less like it's about "not enough money" (which very well may be true) and more "we want to make the POTUS happy," and I say this because CBS News Radio's coverage of his "war" hasn't been the most flattering.

c
 
Weiserguy said:
Then you don't brand it as NPR. Pick a different name, something evocative of CBS News but separate enough so there will be no confusion or claims of trademark infringement. CBS can't exactly claim NPR is stealing something they themselves have just declared to be worthless, can they?
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You are missing the point that BigA makes (and by know you know that we each have different perspectives on many things) which is that the ad revenue is not there.

CBS radio news closed because it was not a profit center and took time away from dealing with more successful growth areas.
Weiserguy said:
For NPR it's not really about how they decide to brand it, it's about spreading the news gathering costs over a wider base of listeners and distributors. I would think the main source of pushback would be from their own affilated stations that compete in many markets (e.g., KCBS v. KQED, KYW v. WHYY, etc.)
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The push-back will come from lack of ad revenue, the need to create a sales and production department and a fundamental difference in the non-com mentality.
 
cc333 said:
I don't know for certain, of course, but I'm inclined to agree with @secondchoice. This closure feels less like it's about "not enough money" (which very well may be true) and more "we want to make the POTUS happy," and I say this because CBS News Radio's coverage of his "war" hasn't been the most flattering.
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The trades are full of reports on the sparsity of radio revenue at the national and agency level. Reading politics into this is just not showing awareness of reality.
 
secondchoice said:
I believe the TV part of CBS News does the majority of the news gathering.
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What you believe is your own personal opinion, and you are entitled to have one.

But what matters is the facts, and that simplistic statement obviously had none backing it up.
 
ted chittenden said:
That said, I agree with the commentor who said that advertisers are no longer buying as much time on commercial news outlets as they have done in the past. So NPR running a commercial news service for radio stations seems like a pretty far-fetched idea for now.
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Since you are not in the business, it's important to clarify that "advertisers don't buy time on commercial news outlets".

Their agencies do. National advertisers almost without exception contract with ad agencies. The agencies work with the client to develop campaigns, both on the creative side and on the marketing (point of purchase, etc.) side and the media side. The agency comes up with a media plan that fits the client's goals and budget.

Agencies are moving more and more money into new media. OTA radio and TV are losing shares of those budgets.
 
davideduardo said:
The trades are full of reports on the sparsity of radio revenue at the national and agency level. Reading politics into this is just not showing awareness of reality.
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You're right, of course.

It's just that, given all the other goings on in Paramount, plus the people in charge, I can't help but feel that there's some sort of ulterior motive at play here.

That said, the fact that CBS News Radio is not profitable due to lack of ad revenue is, of course, true; it just feels to me like that fact is being used as an excuse to eliminate a potential source of dissent.

c
 
cc333 said:
That said, the fact that CBS News Radio is not profitable due to lack of ad revenue is, of course, true; it just feels to me like that fact is being used as an excuse to eliminate a potential source of dissent.
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I will give an example: A few years ago a larger radio and TV group sold over a dozen radio stations. They were mostly in diary markets or AMs and rimshots in larger ones. They did not lose money, but these minor billing stations took more management time than the big stations. They were, thus, a waste of management time and sold.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
That it is. To us history buffs during World War II CBS Radio wrote the book on how to cover major global news.
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You are forgetting H.V. Kaltenborn, who defected to NBC in 1940 and did exceptional broadcasting during WW II including his simultaneous translations of Hitler's speeches.

While still at NBC, his coverage of the Spanish Civil War was amazing, often hiding himself in between the two armies so that listeners could hear the shooting.
 
cc333 said:
I don't know for certain, of course, but I'm inclined to agree with @secondchoice. This closure feels less like it's about "not enough money" (which very well may be true) and more "we want to make the POTUS happy," and I say this because CBS News Radio's coverage of his "war" hasn't been the most flattering.

c
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The war has been going on for a couple of weeks. Nobody makes long-term business decisions based on a blip event.
This move is something CBS has been considering internally for some time.
 
Not by any means a fan of what CBS has become, that is not secret. But just because a business unit began in one medium is it reasonable to expect it to continue operating that as the medium, and associated revenue, declines.

We can talk about the likes of Murrow and Cronkite and other legends, but they weren’t here for the internet age; should CBS not have ventured into digital? Of course not. The content can live elsewhere. Whether the content is beneficial, high quality, balanced, or whatever else is its own passionate debate (and taking place elsewheee). But a few minutes of headlines per hour here in 2026 just isn’t going to be a place to invest, even if the content comes from the ghost of Murrow itself.
 
PTBoardOp93 said:
iHeart is a major operator of talk stations in large and medium markets, and almost all of them use Fox News Radio (which is distributed by iHeart's Premiere Networks) -- unless another, more listened to, talk station has FNR in that market.
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You also have to consider what "use" means. It could mean taking the top-of-hour newscasts, or it could just mean taking newscall items and inserting them into your own newscasts.

In Denver, iHeart's KOA uses both Fox and ABC. The few times when it uses a top-of-hour newscast (generally holidays), it's ABC. iHeart's KHOW is similar. iHeart's KDFD..."Freedom"...uses Fox top-of-hour newscasts. KCSJ in Pueblo and KCOL in the Fort Collins part of the market run newscasts produced at KOA.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
The war has been going on for a couple of weeks. Nobody makes long-term business decisions based on a blip event.
This move is something CBS has been considering internally for some time.
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I agree that they've been considering this for a long time, and it was only a matter of time in much the same way that those of us who worked for CBS Radio when they sold off to Entercom were on borrowed time.

That said, I seriously question if this war is a "blip" event.
 
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