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CBS Radio News Closure: Effects on KCBS and San Francisco
- Thread starter rx8driver2
- Start date
That could work, assuming CBS would allow it (why wouldn't they? As you point out, they're not going to be needing it, so why bother claiming fraud? Besides, it wouldn't be fraud if there were a legal agreement that lets Audacy do it).
I'd enjoy that! I grew up hearing the old sounder, and I've never really liked the current one when it came out, what, 15 years ago now?
c
Because it's part of the CBS brand and identity. Which also begs the question why would KCBS, looking to distance itself from CBS News, want to use their jingle? Makes no sense. KCBS has its own identity, so it wants to reinforce it's brand, not use someone else's. Some suggest KCBS change its call letters, other want them to adopt the CBS jingle. Which is it? I think they're both bad ideas.
This is assuming KCBS sticks with the affiliation until shutdown. If it were me making the decisions, I wouldn't wait that long. Might as well get it over with as soon as practicable.
I want to know what's going to happen to the sound archives.
NBC still owns its radio archives.
Very interesting.
I didn't know this site reached alternate universes.
Reminder that CBS News Radio only occupied 5 minutes on these stations. The rest of the time is local news, done by the station.
KCBS Radio 740: The Complete Aircheck Collection | Bay Area Radio
KCBS Newsradio 740 San Francisco, California The Complete Collection KCBS Newsradio 74 and KCBS FM Stereo 99
bayarearadio.org
Here are the KCBS archives from Bay Area Radio Hall of fame in this case the airchecks go up to 1997 in this link. Yes this is the place to talk and remember the time KCBS was owed by CBS directly.
Hence the timing of the shutdown, you mean ... as for affiliate contract litigation, even if possible, I think not. Lawyers win$ and their clients lose! Not worth the money, certainly not enough loss or injury.
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We should note, WINS does not air a top-of-the-hour network newscast. That was the Westinghouse format still carried to this day. KYW and WBZ, like WINS originally Westinghouse stations, also air no network top-of-the-hour newscast except overnight when programming is prerecorded. The other All-News stations do air a network to begin each hour, most using CBS but KNWN using ABC.
The trouble with no network news is the anchor doesn't get much of a break. On WINS, that's OK. Except for overnight, the anchors switch back and forth every 30 minutes. They have half-hour breaks between each 30 minutes of anchoring. WINS is unique in doing this. All the other All-News stations have anchors on for full four or five hour shifts.
These days, with segments triggered by the master computer, an anchor can still run to the bathroom or lunch room for a few minutes if he just allows one segment to run into another. I would guess that's how WINS handles its overnight shift, which is still all live for four hours. But I'm sure, for peace of mind, most anchors like having that guaranteed four or five minutes each hour.
I think that's why the Audacy stations, except WINS and KYW, will find another top-of-the-hour network newscast to run. My money is on ABC. And I'm not sure AP is on at all hours every day. Maybe someone knows if AP is dark overnight or on weekends?
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I'll try to be clearer. The WARN Act is a federal law that requires companies larger than a certain size (number of employees) to provide a minimum of 60 days of notice (or severance pay in lieu of full notice) to employees about to be laid off. If the layoff meets or exceeds the minimum threshold of employees (as defined in the Act), then the company is mandated to notify (warn, get it?) those employees at least 60 days prior to the start of said layoffs. If you're below the threshold, then the law doesn't apply. If you're only laying off a handful of workers, again it doesn't apply. And if you didn't make the 60 day threshold, you still must pay the affected employees for the number of days you missed it by.
If random employer (let's call them, ohh, CBS) decides to lay off all the employees in a division (let's call it radio news), they need to provide 60 days of notice to affected employees. If they only can give them 40 days notice, they must pay them as if they had given 60 days, so an extra 20 days of salary continuation or lump sum severance. That's the federally-mandated minimum. Many companies will pay employees a severance per an internal policy, which may be one week per year of service, or some other metric. Labor contracts may have their own requirements, but those have been freely negotiated between the parties. Think CBS and SAG-AFTRA, or IBEW.
CBS may spell out how much advance notice they owe affiliates if they want to terminate a program, or a service, or a business. But that's a contractual or a policy requirement. The WARN Act is a labor law.
No. I'd just forgotten it. 'm not sure they have the resources for wall-to-wall audio coverage of a major breaking national or world event. At least not at the level that ABC or (until May 22) CBS have.
That may be an outdated question on my part. I only worked for one station that had AP Network News, KUKI---and went from there to KOLO, which had NBC. It was a world of difference in terms of production values and resources for longform coverage.
And I couldn't tell you the last time I listened to a station that had AP Network News.
Got it.
That being said, CBS attorneys advising Ellison and Weiss on how to handle this I'm sure not only looked at the financial exposure of getting the WARN Act exactly right, but about the financial exposure of breach of contract with 700 stations.
In fact, given the level of potential damages from that many affiliates, that may have been the advance notice that concerned them most. If the contracts specified 90 days, they could have met that window and simply been ahead of the game when it came to the WARN requirement ("at least 60 days prior").
It's been a while since I looked at an affiliation contract (KFBK had CBS, then ABC, during my six years there, which ended six years ago), and 60 days notice sounds right.
As for the TOH chime and news sounder, CBS may not "need" it anymore, but you should never expect a network to surrender intellectual property unless they're going out of business.
NBC retired the three-note chime for about five years back in the early-mid 70s, and then found a use for them again, aligning with NBC Radio's 50th anniversary. CBS could conceivably find a use for its chime/sounder in some digital product.
Also---if----(what, the fifth time now?) Bari Weiss' devaluation and destruction of the CBS News brand becomes truly problematic for KCBS' listener base, the last thing you want is a reminder of that on your air every damn hour. Especially when you could have been rid of it, but you went chasing it instead.
NBC retired the three-note chime for about five years back in the early-mid 70s, and then found a use for them again, aligning with NBC Radio's 50th anniversary. CBS could conceivably find a use for its chime/sounder in some digital product.
Also---if----(what, the fifth time now?) Bari Weiss' devaluation and destruction of the CBS News brand becomes truly problematic for KCBS' listener base, the last thing you want is a reminder of that on your air every damn hour. Especially when you could have been rid of it, but you went chasing it instead.
The L.A. Times has an explainer today on the situation, and while most of it is KNX-specific, there is this essential pull-quote:
Full story: What happens to L.A.'s KNX and other stations when CBS News Radio goes away?
Full story: What happens to L.A.'s KNX and other stations when CBS News Radio goes away?
My point is that Audacy has two contracts with CBS News Radio: One is an affiliation contract, that only requires 60 days notice. The other is the distribution contract, and we don't know what the terms are of that deal.
Even in the 1970s, my experience was that relatively few stations carried it. For example, in the St. Louis area, the only station that carried AP was a suburban station in Alton, Illinois.
My understanding was that stations preferred to barter for network service rather than pay for it outright.
UPI had more stations for its audio service than AP, but that may have been because some regional networks wholesaled it. For instance, Learfield's Missourinet wholesaled UPI in Missouri until 1982 when it switched to the then-new ABC Direction network. Offering the national feed wholesale saved line charges for some small-town stations that had the line anyway for Learfield's agricultural network; as well, Learfield moved to satellite distribution fairly early on in the decade.
There are still some stations in rural Iowa that carry AP radio news. I can’t remember which ones but they’re the only ones I’ve heard it on ever.