It’s the end of an era for CBS. After nearly a century of service, CBS News Radio – and with it America’s longest-running newscast, World News Roundup – will shut down effective May 22, ending its radio service to 700 affiliate stations. Another 6% of the company’s staff, or about 60-70 people, were also laid off on Friday, March 20. But that’s just the beginning of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’ new “restructuring” plan.
End of an Era
CBS News Radio was founded on September 18, 1927. The longest-running newscast in America, World News Roundup, first aired on March 13, 1938, at 8 p.m. Eastern as a one-time special in response to growing tensions in Europe. But after World War II broke out, it became a regular program and broadcast Edward R. Murrow’s WWII dispatches from London.
“CBS News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927,” CBS News Tom Cibrowski wrote in a memo later released to the press. But all things eventually come to an end, and the changing nature of technology and how people consume the news was inevitable. It’s estimated that 83% to 90% of American households listened to news on the radio during World War II, and by 1944, at least 30 million American homes had at least one radio.
In the post-war television boom of the 1950s, TV news surpassed radio as the dominant medium – and leapt ahead again in the ‘60s, especially after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to NPR, around 96% of US households relied on television as their primary news source beyond that point.
Then came the internet – and, eventually, smartphones and social media. According to Pew Research, just 11% of American adults said they often get their new via radio in 2024 – down from 16% in 2020.
“Certain parts of this newsroom need to get smaller in order for us to make room for the things that we need to build to remain competitive in the future,” Ms. Weiss, who took over as editor-in-chief in October of last year, said during a conference call on Friday. In his memo, Mr. Cibrowski wrote that Ms. Weiss and her team tried to find a way to preserve the radio division, but that it was “impossible to continue the service.”
All things considered, it probably should be more surprising that it lasted this long.
The Bari Weiss Shakeup at CBS
CBS News is now owned by David Ellison, the billionaire tech heir whose Hollywood studio Skydance took over Paramount last year. Ellison has said that he wants CBS to take a less biased approach to news and appeal more to a centrist audience. He brought on Bari Weiss, who made swift changes, including a first run of layoffs, cutting 100 jobs in her first month.
“It’s no secret that the news business is changing radically, and that we need to change with it,” Weiss and Cibrowski wrote in a joint memo to CBS News on Friday. “New audiences are burgeoning in new places, and we are pressing forward with ambitious plans to grow and invest so that we can be there for them.”
Ms. Weiss has indicated she’d like to add more podcasts and bring on younger, more internet-savvy contributors to appeal to audiences used to consuming their news via social media.
She said in Friday’s newsroom-wide conference call that the layoffs have “absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your work and the way you have poured your heart and soul into this organization. It simply has everything to do with the times we’re living in.”
As Ms. Weiss re-engineers CBS News so that it’s, as she put it, “fit for purpose in the 21st century,” one can expect these massive changes are just the beginning.
