And that’s the way it is — good night, and good luck.
CBS News Radio — the century-old home of legendary journalists Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow — is shutting down as network boss Bari Weiss continues to reshape the struggling news network, cutting 6% of its workforce in a Friday bloodbath that claimed 60 to 70 jobs.
Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowksi said Friday that CBS Radio will shut down May 22 with all roles in the unit eliminated — a move that was driven by industry shifts and financial pressure from David Ellison, CEO of CBS parent Paramount Skydance.
The duo told employees that “a shift in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service,” while acknowledging “this was a necessary decision” but “not an easy one.”
They emphasized the legacy of the unit, noting CBS News Radio has operated since 1927 — from Edward R. Murrow’s World War II reports to the long-running “World News Roundup” — and said staff would be treated “with care and respect” as the company winds down operations.
Harvey Nagler, who spent 18 years at CBS News including an 18-year stint as CBS News VP of radio before retiring in 2016, said the shuttering of CBS News Radio was premature.
“At some point in time closing it was going to be inevitable, but I don’t believe now was the time to do it,” he said, adding that CBS Radio still had 700 radio stations and 23 million listeners a week.
“Those in a corporate positions were not aware of the clout and the reach of CBS News Radio,” Nagler said, noting that CBS is trying to “rebrand itself” and that it is missing a “massive marketing opportunity” to promote its shows, news stories and movies produced by corporate parent Paramount.
“It’s a profound strategic failure. It’s unfortunate on that basis alone,” he said. “You can’t cut your way to growth.”
Indeed, industry insiders are fuming over the decision and underscored the importance of the radio unit to journalism and the country.
“It’s a major impact to the accessibility of information across the country,” Craig Swagler, a former vice president and general manager of CBS Radio Network, told The Post. “We are living at a time where there are fewer and fewer independent voices and where people across the country can turn for information.”
Swagler, who is currently president and CEO of Baltimore Public Media, said before he left CBS three years ago, CBS News Radio had roughly 30 million people listening to it on a weekly basis.
He noted that “World News Roundup” — the program that aired on CBS since 1938 — is the “origin of the invention of modern-day broadcast journalism.”
“Edward R. Murrow went to Europe as the education director and continued to phone back home to [CEO William S.] Paley and told him this group in Germany continue to have aggressions against Austria … and this guy Hitler was going to take control and annex Austria,” Swagler recounted.
Murrow convinced the network to do a report, which aired on Sunday, March 13, 1938 — the day of the Nazi invasion of Austria.
CBS Radio more or less invented the practice of taking the listener into the scene and describing it to them in the moment — the blueprint for broadcast as we know it today, the exec said.
“We often look at media as a business and not as a public service,” he added.
Another media exec with recent knowledge of CBS Radio’s finances said the unit was break-even, meaning that it wasn’t losing money but also wasn’t bringing any in, either.
Typically, when a business is break-even, execs tend to shed costs before shutting down a unit because it is still bringing in revenue, the person said.
“The business of radio is challenging so I understand the decision on paper,” the source said. “It does tear at the heart of CBS News and its legacy. But, it seems silly to expect this team to hold any of that sacred.”
The source noted that Weiss and Cibrowski were bumping up against the problem of unionized employees when trying to achieve lower headcount.
Many employees across the company are unionized, so the network risks labor grievances or being brought in front of the National Labor Relations Board if does selective layoffs.
But in the case of CBS Radio, no one person was targeted because the whole unit was eliminated, which makes shutting CBS Radio “clean,” the person added.
A fourth CBS source was outraged at Paramount Skydance’s approach of investing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Weiss’ website, The Free Press, instead of salvaging an institution.
“It’s disgusting. Paramount can buy the UFC [rights] for $7.7 billion dollars and give The Free Press $150 million and they can’t keep a legacy that started all of broadcast afloat,” the person said.
“This is legitimately turning the page on the past. It’s a sad day for CBS and a sad day for journalism.”
