CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.
America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.
The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-old news service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."
The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:
CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.
And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.
So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?
Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996.
Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.
Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.
When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup).
Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."
And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.
When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).
But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.
WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).
WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."
But they were NUMBER TEN in the country.
"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.
It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?
Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.
I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.
Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.
Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more.
Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no
more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling
progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.
And you can add to that the stations that have left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too, including at least one college FM station in my area.
I know it's just progress, and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.
I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.
I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.
My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.
I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.
The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea
In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.
It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.
Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510
So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.
I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.
Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.
Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W
Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.
It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.
I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies.
One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).
Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.
Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:
A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.
And with that, my friends, until next time,
Peace.
C.C., March 23rd, 2026.
