CBS to close down US radio news service after 99 years
CBS News says it is shutting down its United States radio news service, which has operated for nearly 100 years, as part of a series of layoffs, blaming a change in radio station programming strategies and tough economic conditions.
When it went on the air in September 1927, CBS News Radio became the forerunner of the entire network and gave young William S Paley a start in the business.
Famous broadcaster Edward R Murrow transmitted reports from London during the Second World War as part of the service.
Today, CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the United States and is known for its best, most up-to-the-minute news summaries.
The service will end May 22, the network said Friday.
“While this was a necessary decision, it was not an easy one,” CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and president Tom Cibrowski said in a memo to staff Friday.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, radio, along with newspapers, was the dominant force in the way people received news in the United States; many people were listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats” during the Great Depression, before the format was largely replaced by television in the 1950s.
In modern society, where the world is online and on phones, radio’s influence has diminished even further.
Audio seekers often turn to podcasts before radio.
News of his death was not immediately reported on the front page of CBS News’ website.
Weiss is no stranger to CBS’ storied past.
Addressing employees in January, three months after taking over as CBS News boss, he called the network’s anchor Walter Cronkite a symbol of old thinking and said “we’d be pissed” if the network continued its current strategy.
Weiss announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and said CBS News must produce stories that “will surprise and provoke, including within our own newsroom.”
Australia’s Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
