CHICAGO – When Gary Scott, general manager of WLDS-WEAI, opened the letter informing him that CBS News Radio would shut down after decades providing programming for his Jacksonville radio station, he was stunned.
“My jaw literally hit the desk when I read it,” Scott said. “It was clearly stated, but I had to read it two or three times before it finally sank in.”
Scott said he received the letter in the mail two or three months before officials pulled the plug. He shared the news with his station’s co-owner, who was equally shocked and confused about where the decision had come from. WLDS-WEAI has long been a major, trusted source of news, farm and sports coverage for Morgan, Scott, Greene and Cass counties in west central Illinois.
“We were very much blindsided by it, and I had this sickening feeling that we have lost something in this country,” Scott said.
CBS News Radio went silent May 22, citing economic hardships, another in a string of bumpy and very public business decisions for the broadcast network. The shutdown ended nearly a century of national and global radio news that brought historic events into Americans’ living rooms, from Edward R. Murrow’s London Blitz broadcasts to coverage of Pearl Harbor and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As longtime CBS affiliate stations across the state move to other news services, broadcasters and industry professionals are weighing how the loss will impact local coverage and what it signals about the future of radio news.
STATIONS ADOPTNEW PARTNERS
In Chicago, WBBM Newsradio was among the Audacy stations left searching for a replacement after CBS News Radio announced it would end its services. As late as April, it was unclear what would fill the gap, until the station switched to ABC News Radio one day before CBS News Radio went silent, according to the Chicago Tribune.
For some downstate Illinois stations, however, the switch came seamlessly.
Tammy Sondgeroth, general manager of NRG Media Ottawa, which operates WCMY, said the station moved to NBC News Radio almost immediately after learning of the closure.
“It was a very fast decision,” Sondgeroth said. “We wanted to get everybody acclimated before everybody had to switch, because why wait?”
She added that the adjustment was relatively easy because NRG Media Ottawa was already paying for NBC News as part of another program the company uses.
Scott Miller, morning show host at WJBC in the Bloomington-Normal region, said the station experienced a similarly smooth shift, though it moved to ABC News Radio instead.
Miller said ABC News Radio was able to replace much of the programming lost with the end of CBS News Radio, including top-of-the-hour news, weekend programming and short segments on entertainment and financial news. He added that WJBC listeners are unlikely to notice much of a difference.
“There’s just sadness to see a legacy brand sunset like this, but we looked at our options that were available to get a national news service, and ABC seemed to be the obvious choice for us,” Miller said.
‘DIFFICULT TO SELLTO OUR LISTENERS’
But for Scott, the next step for WLDS-WEAI was not as clear.
“CBS has always been at the top of the list,” he said. “It was a network that I always wanted to be a part of because I think it’s so well respected and I just thought it was the top of the game. Everything else was a distant second, so it hasn’t been easy for us to adjust.”
While Scott ultimately settled on NBC News Radio, he said the transition required him to revamp key aspects of his station’s coverage. NBC did not offer direct replacements for several CBS News Radio programs WLDS-WEAI had relied on, including some newscasts and weekend programming like “Face the Nation” and “Eye on Travel.”
He said those changes are already apparent to WLDS-WEAI listeners, with the station receiving a few complaints about adjustments to programming that listeners had grown accustomed to over the decades.
“It was difficult to sell (the change) to our listeners, but I think they understand that it was not our decision to drop CBS, it was CBS’s decision to drop us,” Scott said.
For Scott, the loss has prompted broader questions about how radio news is valued by today’s audiences. He warned that the continued decline of traditional news could contribute to the spread of bias and misinformation through other media sources, from digital and cable outlets to social media platforms.
“It’s a step away from what really should be news: newspapers, TV and radio, whether it’s local or national,” he said, “We’re getting much less of that these days, and it can’t do anything but hurt us in the long run. I fear for this country because of this loss.”
For Scott’s station and other local radio stations in rural or less populous areas, the local radio station is often a community institution and may be one of the last remaining sources of local news as the industry continues to contract nationally. Its value proposition is rooted in common interests, shared connections with its audiences and a history that spans generations of listeners.
“WLDS has been on the air since a few days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It became an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs in 2018 and Chicago Bears in 2019,” a message on its website states. “WEAI became an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s.”
FAMILIAR PRESSUREFOR THE INDUSTRY
Illinois Broadcasters Association Chair and Morgan County Media General Manager Sarah Shellhammer said the shutdown of CBS News Radio reflects broader pressures facing the broadcast industry, as news organizations compete with newer ways of reaching consumers.
She said listeners are tuning in to different sources for news, a shift that broadcasters have had to take into consideration.
“Radio has had to adjust to streaming and the internet and a lot of the other options people have to gain news and information,” Shellhammer said. “People are consuming news and media differently than they did 100 years ago, or 50 years ago or even 20 years ago.”
Shellhammer added that the end of CBS News Radio did not have as great an impact as it would have 50 years ago, as other news sources have emerged over the decades and fewer stations have relied on its content.
But not everyone sees those shifts as a sign that traditional radio is nearing its end.
Miller said radio has faced predictions of decline before, from concerns that car radios would distract drivers to worries that satellite radio would mean the death of traditional radio. Each time, he said, the industry found ways to adapt.
“Satellite radio is still here, and traditional radio is still here,” Miller said. “Has it changed? Has it evolved? Yes, but so has the microwave, and so has the lawnmower. If you’re not evolving, then what are you doing? The radio is evolving and keeping up with the other media that’s out there.”
Chloe Park is an undergraduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a Fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.