CBS group to close its radio news service that provided bulletins to hundreds of stations in the United States, after nearly a century of activity, a further illustration of the difficult period experienced by traditional media.
All employees of this division will be laid off, as indicated by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and President Tom Cibrowski in a message sent on Friday. When asked about the number of jobs affected, the group did not provide a response.
“The evolution of the programming strategy of radio stations, combined with a difficult economic situation, makes it impossible to maintain this service,” they justified. CBS News Radio is a unit within CBS News, the news division of the American national television network CBS.
Job cuts at CBS News Radio are part of a social plan affecting all of CBS News, with no specific numbers provided. According to several media reports, around 6% of the approximately 1,100 employees will lose their jobs. Before making its way to television in 1941, CBS was initially a national radio station, established in September 1927 following NBC, which also later became a television network.
Its news service has covered numerous major events, including the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, where war correspondent Charles Collingwood was alongside the Allied troops. The program “World News Roundup” is currently the oldest radio news bulletin in the United States.
In 2017, CBS separated CBS Radio from the rest of the group to merge it with rival Entercom. At the time, it still controlled 117 local American stations. Entercom rebranded to Audacy in 2021. While CBS no longer controlled its former stations, it continued to provide them and many others with news content. This service is now coming to an end, impacting over 700 local radios, as announced in the message on Friday.
Audacy declined to comment. According to a source close to the matter, the service will be permanently terminated by the end of May. Bari Weiss, a conservative opinion journalist appointed to head CBS News in October, has begun restructuring the teams. Some are concerned that she may influence the group’s editorial line to shift towards the right.
Skydance received approval from the U.S. telecom regulator, the FCC, in August, to acquire Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, after committing to make editorial changes demanded by Donald Trump.
