After nearly a century in operation, CBS News will shutter its venerable CBS News Radio on Friday evening.
On air since 1927, the American radio service was a precursor to the entire CBS News network.
CBS World News Roundup — the longest-running American network newscast — debuted in 1938, with listeners glued to their radios to hear journalist Edward R. Murrow and fellow correspondents’ live dispatches and eyewitness accounts from Europe in the lead-up to and during the Second World War.
These and subsequent reporting offered Americans a window to the world.
“My father and mother were very interested in what was happening in Germany. He and my mother viewed radio as the kind of magic carpet that would take you there,” CBS News legend Dan Rather recalled in a tribute on CBS Sunday Morning.
The storied news service that provided millions of Americans with a window to the outside world and their own communities ends after nearly a century of broadcasting.
“I had rheumatic fever as a child, so I was confined to bed,” added the former CBS Evening News anchor. “I was almost … riveted to the radio because it was my constant companion.”
Before his move into television, Rather got his start in radio. He was working for a CBS affiliate and assigned to cover John F. Kennedy’s motorcade during his 1963 visit to Dallas. In an instant, Rather became one of the journalists leading CBS’s coverage of JFK’s assassination.
For many years, the service played a significant role in uniting Americans — helping hold the nation together, Rather said.
“CBS Radio should be remembered for becoming a national institution.”
Through the decades, the service became a trusted source for breaking news and international reporting. It built a legacy and earned respect, Allison Keyes, a CBS News Radio host and correspondent, said in the same CBS Sunday Morning feature.
She recalled coverage of the 9/11 attacks as a prime example. “People needed to know what was going on that day and they needed to know real time: no filter, no politics. Here’s what’s happening,” said the veteran journalist, who was among the reporters covering the attacks and their aftermath.
Most recently, CBS News Radio was recognized for its top-of-the-hour news round-ups, with those updates and reports heard via approximately 700 CBS affiliate stations across the U.S.
“Every hour on the hour, you turn on the radio and you can hear that special chime — and you know that it’s an authoritative voice, that what they are telling you has been checked out,” said Ted Johnson, politics and media editor for entertainment trade publication Deadline.
“It’s not a rumour; it’s not speculation. It’s what is happening right now and what is most important.”
Changing times
Professor Richard John, who teaches history and communications at Columbia University’s school of journalism, praised the service’s “very impressive stable of reporters, very reliable radio news” and status as a “trusted voice for millions of Americans and for folks around the world.”
Yet there have been undeniable shifts in how people now seek out news, he said.
“How many folks are listening to radio news these days?” John pointed out, noting that the internet, Facebook and Substack posts are among the myriad places audiences are turning to instead for news and information.
“We are not all tuning in at one time as we once did,” he said. “If there’s breaking news, you’re not going to your radio to hit the dial to CBS; you are going to be checking online.”
In late 2025, CBS made a round of cuts to radio programming, including eliminating Weekend Roundup and World News Roundup Late Edition.
In announcing layoffs and the closure of CBS News Radio to staff in March, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss said, “We did everything we could, including before I joined the company, to try and find a viable solution to sustain the radio operation.”
However, “radical changes in the media industry” meant “we just could not find a way to make that possible,” said Weiss, a former opinion writer and founder of online news site the Free Press who was tapped to lead the network last fall not long after CBS changed ownership.
In August, Skydance Media — run by David Ellison, son of longtime Donald Trump supporter Larry Ellison — acquired CBS parent company Paramount.
News ‘overshadowed’ by opinion
Though terrestrial radio has indeed struggled, Deadline’s Johnson says some have criticized the decision to shutter CBS News Radio rather than adapt it for the booming realm of podcasts and streaming.
“There are many different ideas that some of these radio stations, radio networks and radio news services can tap into at this time, especially because we’re talking about CBS News Radio, which is a recognizable brand,” he said.
Johnson believes the closure of storied radio service marks a loss for journalism and diversity of voice in American media at a particularly challenging time.
Since the beginning of 2026, along with the cuts at CBS, the Washington Post also laid off a third of its staff and The Associated Press offered buyouts to over 120 journalists. Meanwhile, CBS parent company Paramount has also acquired cable news network CNN.
“All of these news sources have been kind of overshadowed by the growth of opinion voices, whether that’s in podcasts or on cable news or in streaming,” Johnson said.
“When it comes to radio, we’re going to be down to just a few major players out there and then the concern becomes who is controlling the voice that most Americans hear?”
