Nearly 100 years of broadcast history came to an end when CBS News Radio aired its final newscast. The network that shaped generations of journalists, provided affiliates across the country with a trusted top-of-the-hour product, and carried the legacy of Edward R. Murrow into the modern era simply closed its doors. Industry veterans felt the weight of the moment — but most of them didn’t stay there long. The more urgent conversation isn’t about what was lost. It’s about what happens next for news radio, who fills the void, and whether the format has the backbone to carry itself into whatever comes after.
The grief was real, though. “It has been the gold standard for radio news for almost a century and an organization I’ve been proud to have partnered with for so many decades,” said Ken Charles, Director of Branding and Content for 95.5 WSB. His frustration runs deeper than sentiment. “It’s not going away because it’s bad. It’s not going away because the world has changed and doesn’t want news from radio.”
Charles didn’t stop there. “It is going because shortsighted, non-journalist management hacks with no understanding of the medium are in control and don’t care,” he said. “It’s a cautionary tale — one that the CBS News brand, whether TV, digital, or whatever — will never recover from. It’s also a giant mistake people need to study and learn from because it’s being made in local markets, large and small, every day.”
Not everyone frames it as a failure of journalism, though. Others see CBS’s exit as a reflection of the streaming-first, subscription-driven restructuring consuming legacy media — one that says very little about the health of news radio itself.
A Business Decision, Not a Broadcast Failure
Lee Harris, Vice President of News for the Worldwide News Network, sees CBS’s retreat from radio as a symptom of a much larger industry-wide shift.
“The biggest suppliers of radio news are also in the television business,” he said. “And I think that’s the key to what’s happened with CBS.”
Harris points directly at the subscription-first mentality consuming media conglomerates. “They’re very subscription-focused,” he said. “Less interested in what we think of traditionally as broadcasting and having to chase ad dollars in a fractured ad marketplace when they can sell you a season of Dutton Ranch direct to the consumer.” The math simply doesn’t work in CBS’s favor anymore under that model. “No one’s going to subscribe for $10 a month for a top-of-the-hour radio newscast,” said Harris. “So it just doesn’t fit with their business model anymore.”
Dan Mason, former CBS Radio President and CEO, reinforced the point with characteristic directness. “I don’t believe this is a news issue but more of a radio as a medium issue,” he said. “It is pretty obvious CBS sees its future in a digital world and not a broadcast world.”
Scott Herman, former CBS Radio Chief Operating Officer, echoed that read while identifying the one genuine miscalculation in the whole exit. “There really is no great time to end a tradition that lasted nearly 100 years, but I wouldn’t say this is a business mistake,” he said. “The only mistake, in my opinion, is that CBS News Radio was the best marketing arm for CBS News on TV.” He went further. “You can run all the promos you want on the TV network, but it’s the reach of the radio stations that gave them unprecedented promotion,” said Herman.
Phil Boyce, Senior Vice President of Spoken Word Formats for Salem Media, chose to focus on opportunity rather than loss. “I think it’s sad and unfortunate that we’re losing CBS,” he said. “And of course, we welcome any of those stations that want to come over. We’ve got a very good top- and bottom-of-the-hour news product.”
What News Radio Still Has Going for It
Despite the hand-wringing, the evidence on the ground tells a more optimistic story. News radio isn’t dying — it’s clarifying. Stations that commit to local service and live, relevant programming continue to thrive. The format’s defenders aren’t just making an emotional case. They’re pointing to ratings and revenue.
Boyce makes the business case plainly. “I think WTOP is still the number one revenue-generating radio station in the nation, and they are an all-news behemoth,” he said. “So you can make a lot of money on it.” He noted the format’s built-in sales advantages. “There are so many sales vehicles and promotional opportunities in an all-news station where you can sell traffic and weather and sports and news and all kinds of other things that a lot of radio stations can’t really sell,” said Boyce.
Scott Herman frames it in terms of structural uniqueness. “News radio is not only healthy, it’s one of the two best radio formats that exist,” he said. “These two formats are the only ones that have exclusive live, local programming that can’t be duplicated by satellite or syndication. It’s no surprise that all-news, news/talk, and sports stations are consistently among the highest billing and the highest rated stations across the country.”
Chris Berry, Executive Vice President of News, Talk, and Sports for iHeartMedia, makes the practical case for radio’s irreplaceable role in breaking news. “Nobody can cover a breaking news story better than a radio station can,” he said. “We give it to you in bits and pieces the same way that it comes into a newsroom.” His confidence in the medium isn’t nostalgia. It’s a challenge to lean into what makes radio genuinely different. “Breaking news is the most important thing that any radio station can do,” said Berry. “It’s immediate, people have the technology, they know how to use it, and it’s ubiquitous.”
Harris points to the durability of the top-of-the-hour structure as evidence of the format’s staying power. “The idea that at the top of the hour we pause and find out what’s going on in the world is pretty embedded into a lot of formats — not just news talk formats,” he said. Station brands like 1010 WINS, WTOP, WSB, WLW, and KFI remain substantial players because they’ve built that expectation into their identity.
Harvey Nagler, former CBS Radio Vice President of News, worries about what happens if the institutional infrastructure behind those broadcasts begins to erode. “I’d be naive to think affiliates are just not going to have a network news service,” he said. “I think it’s really important to have a news service that covers the world and has reporters all over the world to tell people what’s really going on.” He believes listeners in the smallest cities still need someone covering the rest of the world for them. “Things that happen in far-off places matter to the person in the smallest cities in our country,” said Nagler.
The Challenges Ahead
The optimism comes with some hard honesty. Several voices in this conversation acknowledge that news radio faces real structural obstacles — and surviving them requires more than holding onto what’s always worked.
Craig Swagler, former CBS Audio Network Vice President and General Manager, draws a distinction between the local news health he sees across the country and what the loss of a network entity means for the broader information ecosystem. “The network state is really where the impact that CBS has,” he said. “There’s one less option for people to turn to in what’s going on in the world and the globe, and it just collapses that. That’s not a good thing.”
Swagler’s concern extends well beyond sentiment. “We continue to see the collapse of ownership across media organizations,” he said. “Many of those options are becoming less and less, and that’s not good for the consumer. It’s not good for business. Competition thrives innovation.” He wonders aloud what fewer players means for the format’s evolution. “As this becomes fewer options, there’s also the challenge of what will the innovation look like?” said Swagler.
Berry names the trust challenge head-on. “The internet has no editor,” he said, “and because of that, people realize that a lot of the content they see has to be double checked.” That’s actually an argument in radio’s favor — but only if stations hold the line. “As long as we provide high-quality, dependable, and reliable content, we will continue to have a place in the diet of the American news consumer,” said Berry.
Boyce identifies a credibility erosion he’s heard about directly from affiliates who’ve changed network partners. “The only credibility issue I have seen has to do with certain network newscasts becoming a bit more woke than the audience,” he said. “We have seen that over several years.” Stations migrated away from services they once trusted because the product drifted. “I think most listeners want it played straight down the middle,” said Boyce. “Just tell me the truth. Tell me the facts. Don’t spin it. Don’t make me feel uncomfortable about my own views and beliefs every time I hear a newscast.”
Harris also surfaces a persistent business friction that doesn’t get enough attention. “IP-delivered programming is much more attributable to advertisers,” he said. “Over-the-air just isn’t that.” For advertisers demanding household-level metrics, terrestrial radio still can’t compete with digital on measurability. That pressure isn’t going away anytime soon.
Jennifer Brown, former CBS News Radio Executive Editor, puts her finger on something even more fundamental. She says theaudience fragmentation challenge cuts across all legacy media. “I am scared even for journalism, because everything is very siloed in bubbles now,” she said. “Everybody lives in their own little bubbles. They have their news sources that reinforce their ideas. And we’re getting further and further from the actual truth of it all.”
Where the Opportunity Lives
For all the challenges, the people actually doing the work of building news radio’s next chapter sound genuinely bullish. They’re not waiting for the format to rescue itself. They’re signing affiliates, investing in infrastructure, and thinking creatively about how content travels across platforms.
John Sylvester, Senior Vice President of Fox News Audio, sees the hourly newscast as a centerpiece product that affiliate demand simply hasn’t weakened. “Our news product is amazing,” he said. “We’re servicing our entire syndicated portfolio, servicing over 3,200 affiliations.” The infrastructure backing it is substantial. “We still have over 100 audio professionals here at 1211,” said Sylvester. “We still have dedicated bureaus in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, London, and Washington, DC. And we are all in on audio.”
The Fox News infrastructure powering his network’s radio content represents the kind of cross-platform synergy that gives affiliates a real competitive edge. “Having the power of Fox News Media and having the Fox News brand heard across 3,200 affiliations across the country is a pretty amazing accomplishment from our team,” said Sylvester. “Leadership here at Fox is very supportive of audio.”
Katie den Daas, Senior Vice President of Newsgathering for ABC News, describes an affiliate market that’s hungry for exactly the kind of partnership CBS’s exit created.
“We’ve got a lot of stations who now are looking for a partner to help provide that domestic and international news that complements their local news so well,” she said. “That’s definitely the biggest opportunity for us right now.” Her network’s momentum reflects that demand. “At this point, we’re connected to well over 200 stations and counting,” said den Daas.
She also points to something genuinely encouraging for the long-term health of the audio news business. Quality journalism, she says, travels across platforms without losing its value.
“Good reporting is good reporting regardless of what platform it starts on and what other platforms it goes to,” she said. ABC’s experience adapting its Murrow Award-winning podcast Start Here into a weekend broadcast illustrates the point vividly. “One of our stations is airing it six to nine times on the weekend because their audiences love it,” said den Daas. “I just think there are tons of opportunity.”
Boyce frames the value proposition in terms that station programmers understand. “We still see in our research that breaking news … is the most important thing listeners want from us,” he said. “So we’ve got to do a good job making sure we fill that want and need.” His confidence in the top-of-hour structure as a programming anchor isn’t sentimental. It’s backed by the bottom line. “It’s very profitable for us,” said Boyce. “I would have thought CBS could have made it profitable too. But if they didn’t, we’ll do the best we can to pick it up where they left off.”
Berry crystallizes what makes radio’s news proposition different from every other platform — and it’s something technology still can’t easily replicate. “You cannot get timely updates on your cell phone about breaking weather situations,” he said. “It’s critical because it’s the one story that affects everyone.” Radio’s companion nature — the fact that it reaches people in the car, at the office, or during a morning routine — still gives it a lane that screens haven’t stolen.
Harris puts the CBS situation in the clearest possible terms for anyone still wondering what it means. “I think CBS got out of the business not because there was no need for the product,” he said. “The product didn’t align with their business model. That is the reason.”
He wants the industry to understand the distinction. “They didn’t get out of it because it was not a good business or not something the public needed,” said Harris.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
