Roger Friedman-Showbiz411.com
After 60 years, WCBS — Newsradio 88 in New York — is over. Their parent company, Audacy, which barely exists anyway, has destroyed a New York standard bearer.
Maybe as early as today, WCBS — including the call letters — will be replaced by an ESPN sports station.
That leaves New York with just one all news station. WINS continues to operate at 1010AM, but that will change soon, too. Little by little, WINS has been identifying itself as 92.3 FM. Audacy will pull the plug on WINS 1010AM soon, trust me.
Audacy Kills WCBS NewsRadio
WCBS fell to a record low share in both May and June of this year with a 1.5 share in 6+., while 1010 WINS was just outside the top 5. Its Cume in July 2024 was at just 679,400 people, with WINS eighth in the market at 1,538,800.
This is yet another, though larger and more serious, sign of the decline of the radio news business. When I was working for CBS News/Radio in NYC, network and local were owned by the same company, CBS. I was often shared between the two for anchoring and reporting. The later corporate changes shattered what was a first-class news operation. I’m proud to have been a part of it (the Broadcast Center was a long way from Country KUTI when I got out of college). I’m distressed by how the changes in media affect local and national governance, and I’m quite happy to be out of the business.
Steve Knight
I’m just speculating that KCBS in San Francisco may be falling soon. A format switch along with a change in call letters is likely to happen there.
KCBS is 4th in the SFO market, so that would be huge. Here are the July ratings, FWIW, in San Fran. Pretty good number, so maybe still making some money for Shock and Audacy.
https://ratings.radio-online.com/content/arb009
Audacy has to relinquish the CBS calls (per the agreement made at the time Audacy purchased CBS Radio stations) and it may happen soon.
The CBS News Radio network is owned by Paramount Global. It is the last of the three original national U.S. radio networks (CBS, NBC Radio Network and Mutual Broadcasting System) still operating and still owned by its parent company, even though CBS sold its owned and operated radio stations to Audacy in 2017. The current NBC Radio Network is actually owned by iHeartMedia but licenses use of the NBC name and NBC’s TV news reports.
I grew up in the suburbs of NYC… and I remember listening to WCBS 880 with my dad almost every day in the car. I’m kind of in shock – 880 is an institution of sorts there. 880 was how we got a lot of the news about 9/11 the day it happened.
I knew it was just a matter of time, but I’m really surprised they were the first one to go off the air out of KNX and WBBM. Doubly surprised that KNWN outlasted Newsradio 88.
WHSQ-AM effective Aug. 26