The CBS group will close its radio news service that provided bulletins to hundreds of stations in the United States, after nearly a century of activity, a new illustration of the difficult period faced by traditional media.
All employees in 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 radio stations’ programming strategy combined with a difficult economic situation make it impossible to maintain this service,” they justified. CBS News Radio is an entity within CBS News, the news division of the American national television network CBS.
The job cuts at CBS News Radio are part of a social plan affecting the entire CBS News, which did not wish to disclose a figure. According to several media reports, around 6% of the approximately 1,100 employees will lose their jobs. Before making its mark on television in 1941, CBS was first a national radio station, created in September 1927 following NBC, which also later became a television network.
Its news service covered many major events, including the Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, during which war correspondent Charles Collingwood was with the Allied forces. The program “World News Roundup” is currently the oldest radio news bulletin in the United States.
In 2017, CBS split CBS Radio from the rest of the group to merge it with competitor Entercom. At that time, it still controlled 117 local American stations. Entercom rebranded as Audacy in 2021. Although it no longer controlled its former stations, CBS continued to provide them, as well as many others, with news content. This service is now being discontinued, affecting over 700 local radio stations, according to the message published on Friday.
Audacy declined to comment. According to a source close to the matter, the service will cease completely by the end of May. Bari Weiss, a right-leaning opinion journalist, who was appointed to lead CBS News in October, has undertaken a team overhaul. Some are concerned that she may influence the group’s editorial line to steer it to the right.
In August, Skydance received approval from the U.S. telecom regulator, the FCC, to acquire Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, after committing to make editorial changes demanded by Donald Trump.
