CBS News Radio: A beacon of broadcast journalism signs off

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

Updated on: May 10, 2026 / 9:54 AM EDT


Before YouTube and podcasts, before even the nightly television newscasts, millions of people found out what was happening from CBS News Radio. But later this month, after 99 years, CBS News Radio is going silent. CBS executives have cited the changes in how people are getting their news increasingly from social media, and the "challenging economic realities."

Steve Kathan, the current (and final) anchor of the "CBS World News Roundup," discovered CBS News Radio in the 1960s, listening on a transistor radio: "And that's where I heard some of the great CBS News broadcasters," he said. "You were hearing something live. It was a live broadcast."

"Everyone knows the legacy of CBS; everybody knows the power and respect that that name engenders," said program host and correspondent Allison Keyes. She has covered a lot of stories in her more than 25 years in radio, but no other like the one she covered live on September 11, 2001:

"I can hardly breathe. It looks like a nuclear war happened here. You can't see the sky at all. It's all grey smoke.". "People needed to know what was going on that day," Keyes said, "in real time, no filter, no politics. Here's what's happening."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-radio-a-beacon-of-broadcast-journalism-signs-off/

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I will certainly miss the parade of correspondents at the top of the hour on my local CBS affiliate (formerly an NBC one until the '90s when all hell broke loose with broadcast deregulation).

Allison Keyes, Christopher Cruz, Jim Krasula, Deborah Rodriguez, Stacy Lyn, and yes even Sabina Castelfranco... (in) "Rome".

My station (KYW) is NOT owned by CBS but by Audacy (as of 2024), which is owned by Soros!

[Jacson6]

1. Yeah podcast are replacing terristal radio.

In Europe it has been replaced with the Internet and satellites. I used to listen to a CBS radio station WWJ in the 70's.
Radio Anchors never die they just fade away.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Podcasts require access to the internet

which has a monthly (or some periodic) cost unless you wander around looking for free wifi.

Terrestrial (OTA) radio is "free" and as the GOP continues to strip more and more from the lowest rungs of society, they will not have a way to access internet content due to cost (where a choice has to be made about whether to eat or pay rent and utilities, so forget internet and health insurance), and we will really be left with an even more marginalized segment of the population.

We saw that "digital divide" in stark relief during COVID, when school systems (like here Philly) set up remote learning for the kids and found out that thousands had no internet service at home and no computers.

[Jacson6]

3. People with smart devices have access included with their Cellular provider for a fee they already pay.

They can subscribe to Spotify for $6/mo or use an app provided by the podcaster.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. And there are countless poorer households who do not have smartphones or cell service

and that includes many elderly who rely on radio and/or TV for information. My mom didn't have cell service until I put her on my plan with a simple flip phone that she would dutifully plug in once a week to charge (she has since passed away but would have been 96 this year). There are countless who have no relatives to share a plan.

And as cell providers continue to raise rates, many will not be able to afford even the basic service with a flip phone. And this assumes if federal subsidy programs like "Lifeline" don't get slashed with future budget requests aimed at removing more social safety net programs, in order to give that money to the rich and pay for ballrooms, arches, and golden statues.

[FemDemERA]

5. So True BumRushDaShow. At my college, many students had no computers, printers, or internet and

were trying to use their cell phones as computers and/or their "hotspot" data to login and do classwork. I spent many hours on the phone trying to help students access and complete forms - not only did they not know how to do something that we who worked with computers everyday had assumed a college student could do, but the cell phones and hotspot data was excruciatingly slow for many of them. Plus, most plans have a limited hotspot, and video eats up that data quickly. Some students didn't have plans that included hotspots or data, just a basic few minutes and texts a month. When you have little funds, you are forced to cut out anything that is not essential to living and breathing - and many times even those.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. And for those with minimalist plans

they need it for texts since more and more entities are requiring "2-factor authentication" for logins, and texts for doing that are easiest and less data intensive than email.

Gawd I remember the days when early ISPs were charging 10 cents per email message and people were using IRC programs like ICQ to communicate to avoid the mail charges.