This Futterman really gets around... I've heard him file reports for KFI in the past.
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CBS Radio News Closure: Effects on KCBS and San Francisco
- Thread starter rx8driver2
- Start date
Sidebar: I was speaking from personal experience. I've never had a union job, whether in broadcasting or in my other career, even at a company where 75% of the employees were in a union. The point was that media companies tend to be stingy with salaries and benefits compared to others (I'll add: except for retail jobs),. Stars are treated differently, and there are fewer and fewer of those. In the company that I referred to (not in the media) that's largely unionized: there was an effort made to ensure that non-union employee benefits were equivalent to those of the unionized employees. A media company might not have done that, but I wouldn't pretend to know.
Funny how 93.1 has some signal trouble in its home market. When I listen in Marin, 80+ miles away, 93.1 is one of the only Sacramento FM's that comes in reliably. That's likely due to 93.1's much higher elevation (but lower power).
As our engineers explained it to me, there are parts of the eastern metro (especially the high-growth areas between Roseville and Auburn) with terrain between them and the 93.1 site at Pollock Pines. The line of sight to the Bay Area, though, is unobstructed.
Here is a 1993 archery of KCBS when they had their 25th anniversary as all news.
A new world wide radio news service is being hatched by a radio owner. Will KCBS be an affiliate?
Hell no. That "radio owner" is John Catsimatidis, who owns WABC radio in New York, as well as a few far-out suburban stations that he's turned into translators for the mother ship, as well as his Red Apple Media, which he uses to try syndicating his station's far right talk blather. (He also owns the Gristedes supermarket chain, for those who've spent time in Manhattan and know what that implies. And a bunch of other businesses that have made him a billionaire who can afford to subsidize his media empire, which, unlike more normal owners, can't survive on ad crumbs.) His "World Wide Radio Network" won't be heard on any Audacy all-news station, or any other station that aspires to take news seriously. IMHO, of course.
Don't shoot the messenger. But if you'd like another shot. Cumulus just might be heading into a third bankruptcy. So how long before another radio group sweeps them up? Oh and a merger of SiriusXM And I-Heart Media is in preliminary talks. Yikes.
How can they be heading for their third bankruptcy already? Didn't they just enter their second?
Or am I confusing it for another company?
c
Once again, KCBS is already an affiliate of AP and Bloomberg. They don't need more than one.
OK, we're closing in on the end of CBS News Radio. Just about two weeks to go.
Does anyone know what KCBS et al plan to do at this point?
KCBS has been business as usual; I've heard zero mention of this looming problem so far.
It's going to be strange to not hear the CBS sounder that's been there since forever.
c
Does anyone know what KCBS et al plan to do at this point?
KCBS has been business as usual; I've heard zero mention of this looming problem so far.
It's going to be strange to not hear the CBS sounder that's been there since forever.
c
Yes, for a few days, but then it'll be like it never existed. Memories are short. Whatever they decide to do, assuming it sounds sufficiently classy, will just take the place of the network and become the new normal.
As noted above, two of the Audacy All-News stations don't use a network at the top of the hour. WINS NYC and KYW Philadelphia were originally owned by Westinghouse and never used hourly network news. (KYW now does use CBS but only overnight when its programming is prerecorded. WBZ Boston, once owned by Westinghouse but now owned by iHeart, does the same as KYW--no network news except it runs CBS overnight when its programming is prerecorded.) So it's possible KCBS doesn't go with hourly network news and just has its anchors begin each hour with them reading local and national stories, just as they do at the bottom of the hour.
If the Audacy All-News stations that currently carry CBS News on the hour are going to switch to another network, they've been tight-lipped about it. There are only a few options: ABC, iHeart 24/7 and AP, although I'm not sure if AP supplies newscasts overnight. I doubt Audacy would choose Fox since that network is so identified with conservative politics. And it wouldn't likely be Salem's SRN or Townhall since they are not really up to the CBS-ABC-AP standards, more of a rip-and-read sort of service and slanted conservative.
If the Audacy All-News stations that currently carry CBS News on the hour are going to switch to another network, they've been tight-lipped about it. There are only a few options: ABC, iHeart 24/7 and AP, although I'm not sure if AP supplies newscasts overnight. I doubt Audacy would choose Fox since that network is so identified with conservative politics. And it wouldn't likely be Salem's SRN or Townhall since they are not really up to the CBS-ABC-AP standards, more of a rip-and-read sort of service and slanted conservative.
If market exclusivity matters, KCBS likely would go with ABC or AP though the former might be in service around the clock more than the latter. KGO 810, at least during its final few years of local news-talk until 2022, ran ABC TOH and I don’t believe another station in the market has them now. iHeart-owned 960 might run their in-house TOH during their right-wing talk programming hours overnights so that might be out as an option for KCBS. I’m curious to see where if anywhere this all lands.
I don't think exclusivity is as important as it once was. For instance, Fox News Radio offers two top-of-the-hour newscasts to affiliates on weekdays. One is longer, one shorter. In a few markets, one station uses one and another uses the other. But they are both branded as Fox News and both play the same Fox sounder. I doubt KCBS would use Fox since it has such an identity with conservative politics. But it shows Fox is a network that doesn't worry much about exclusivity.
With iHeart's 24/7 news, since it is offered as both a "white label" service with no sounder and no mention of the network and also as a branded "NBC News Radio" service, it's possible two stations could run it in San Francisco. I think the white label 24/7 newscast is heard each hour, evenings and late nights on 960 AM when sports programming doesn't air.
Mo Rocca did a look back at the history of CBS New Radio:
www.cbsnews.com
The fact is that radio became less important to CBS after TV. Murrow moved to TV for the rest of his career.
CBS News Radio: A beacon of broadcast journalism signs off
Founded nearly a century ago, CBS Radio, featuring legends such as Edward R. Murrow, Robert Trout and Charles Osgood, created the template for broadcast journalists. But on May 22, CBS will end its heralded radio service.
www.cbsnews.com
The fact is that radio became less important to CBS after TV. Murrow moved to TV for the rest of his career.
Because it's not a problem.
Do the math.
Literally, do the math.
Let’s assume that KCBS has 40 minutes of content to produce each hour, after subtracting time for spots and a few other things.
CBS News Radio provides three minutes of that content per hour (on weekdays).
3/40 = 0.075, i.e. 7.5% of the hour.
So between 7 and 8% of every hour is CBS News Radio content.
The station could stretch to provide that content itself if it had to. For hours when there’s breaking news, KCBS occasionally has done that already.
As it is, KCBS produces far more of its own content than the vast majority of radio stations. They know how to do this.
It’s an additional challenge but solvable. I wouldn’t characterize it as a problem.
Me either. They could just add three more minutes of commercials. Problem solved.
Other Audacy all newsers have figured out how to survive without TOH network news.
They still have access to material from outside sources such as AP & Bloomberg. They can also share material from other Audacy news stations.
They already share overnights with KNX, so whatever they do in San Francisco needs to be coordinated with LA.
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Live Channel USA (radionetworknews.com) will launch “Radio Network News” with a bridge service on May 23 to immediately fill the gap following CBS’ final broadcast and full network rollout on June 1. Read more: Live Channel USA To Launch Radio Network News Upon CBS Shutdown