K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
In my opinion, feeding a TOH newscast, using anchors from their own stations, is a lesser undertaking than this simulcast has been.
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CBS News Radio Closed
- Thread starter TheBigA
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In my opinion, feeding a TOH newscast, using anchors from their own stations, is a lesser undertaking than this simulcast has been.
That would be my guess. They can do their own national roundup, send it to their own news stations, and even their talk stations (WCCO, KDKA, etc.). Plus, they could offer it to all the other non-Audacy stations currently carrying CBS News. Similar to what IHeart does with their FOX News updates. Audacy probably already has more of a staff infrastructure due to their all-news stations.
While the decision to axe CBS Radio News division is likely a sound business decision, many of us who are fairly horrified by what has happened to the CBS News division in general are going to look at any move made by these guys at this point less as a business move and more as one colored by politics. You could run CBS Radio news without any ads at all for 10 years and it is still a rounding error in the overall Paramount Skydance portfolio.
And yet, since Harvey Nagler retired at the end of 2016, each subsequent management group leading CBS has whittled away at the Radio News operation. Rounding error or not, they've been making cuts in this workgroup for a decade.
It has been almost 3 years since CBS had a full time, on staff, anchor covering overnights. It has been a rotation of freelancers and with a paucity of jobs in radio news, if they opened that roll up as a full time position, someone would take it (despite the hours).
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
You don't think the union is going to want to weigh in on the increased workload? And then coordinating among the various studio locations?
I suppose there's some chance, but the business success of other entrants just hasn't been good. Remember Westwood One news? Certainly having WINS, KNX and WBBM as key players in such an effort is helpful.
The biggest operational question is whether how they would report the news outside the markets where they operate. Say the President gives a speech from Cincinnati, or the Pope gives mass in Boston. Where is Audacy getting the actualities for that? Presumably up til now it would have come from CBS News.
Bigger than that, they don't own a news station in DC, so they don't have beat reporters for the federal offices, white house, capitol hill, etc, as the other nets have. They don't have any international reporters. So it's a big undertaking. They could do what some small nets do and just re-write stories from various other news services. No actual on site reporting. Just rip & read. But a local station could do that if they wanted to.
I think when Westwood One had their news service they had an arrangement with CNN to get some audio. Their service was done pretty cheaply, and even then, they couldn't afford to do it.
It may have been missed up thread, but it seems to me that iHeart's News 24/7 newscasts is the way to do it.
Dedicated anchors for the service (4 FT for weekdays or 5 FT if two cover weekends and split a weekday shift). Some editors (how many?).
Use the regional newsrooms for the majority of the reporting with generic lockouts. Get a content agreement from someone (maybe CBS).
Hire two reporters in DC to cover politics and call it good.
Can they sell any ads to pay for this? The million dollar question (literally).
Since they were the ones selling the ads for CBS, they know what the market is.
As I noted up thread, they did a much worse job selling the ads than Skyview did. What's iHeart's track record with their service?
They own other stations in DC, which is a start.
And they could lean on their affiliates, like the TV networks do. Obviously, WTOP would be one to work a deal with. They're a CBS News affiliate.
Otherwise, deals could be worked out. NBC, perhaps? There's also various agencies in other countries they could partner with.
My thinking is most network news in radio will fall by the wayside. The adverising base seems to be getting slimmer and slimmer.
On a state level one station that had carried Texas State Network's 5 minute hourly cast told thm if they had a 60 second hourly cast, they'd stay with TSN. TSN created a 1 minute cast. I'd say it's a sign of the times. Music stations want to stay music outside AM drive.
On a state level one station that had carried Texas State Network's 5 minute hourly cast told thm if they had a 60 second hourly cast, they'd stay with TSN. TSN created a 1 minute cast. I'd say it's a sign of the times. Music stations want to stay music outside AM drive.
They seem to have put together a package that combines news, weather, and traffic services, mostly from the old Metro Traffic.
The game in selling national is what percentage of the country do you cover. But even then, you're still mainly dealing with a limited range of clients.
Sure they have a building they can work from. But they're all music stations, so no actual white house or capitol reporters.
If they can make a deal with WTOP, as a replacement for CBS, that would be helpful. It's possible that Hubbard is also thinking about doing its own national news service, using WTOP as a base.
iHeart already has a deal with NBC. So perhaps they can still make a deal to utilize CBS TV audio.
Run it from a non-union city. It's 2026, not everything has to come out of NY or LA
I think all of their all-news stations are in union cities.
I seem to remember Westwood One being largely private label CNN.
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