CBS News is shuttering its radio news service after nearly 100 years.
Originally launched in September 1927, CBS News Radio still provides news – including top-of-the-hour news roundups – to roughly 700 affiliate stations across the country.
The network told employees Friday that the service will be discontinued on May 22, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press (AP), with Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss and President Tom Cibrowski calling the decision “necessary,” but “not easy.”
“A shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service,” the memo stated.
CBS parent company Paramount laid off approximately six per cent of the CBS News workforce Friday – believed to encompass 60 – 70 positions – including those within the radio division. The cuts follow previous job losses in the radio division last year, with the elimination of the service’s “Weekend Roundup” and “World News Roundup Late Edition.”
“It’s no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change along with it,” Weiss and Cibrowski said in the memo to staff.
SAG-AFTRA, which represents represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, and voiceover artists, among other entertainment and media professionals, said it was “appalled” to learn of the network’s decision to shutter CBS News Radio.
“For more than a century, CBS News has been a bedrock of broadcast journalism. Many distinguished journalists who performed their work with courage, integrity and loyalty to CBS lost their jobs today. Our thoughts are with them, and with their colleagues at CBS News,” said President Sean Astin and National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
