CBS News Radio Signs Off After Nearly 100 Years

RADIO ONLINE | Friday, May 22, 2026 | 1:38pm CT

CBS News Radio

CBS News Radio will end operations Friday night, bringing to a close one of the most influential institutions in American broadcast journalism after nearly a century on the air.

The network, which currently provides national news programming to approximately 700 affiliate stations across the country, is shutting down amid what parent company executives described as changing radio programming strategies and "challenging economic realities." The closure affects an estimated 60 to 70 employees.

The decision was first announced in March by CBS News President Tom Cibrowski and editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who said the company could no longer sustain the service despite its historic legacy.

"For nearly 100 years, CBS News Radio has delivered original reporting to the nation," the executives said in a statement, pointing to coverage ranging from World War II broadcasts by Edward R. Murrow to modern-day White House reporting.

CBS News Radio traces its roots to the 1927 launch of the Columbia Broadcasting System, though its modern news division formally emerged in 1938 with Murrow's live reports from Vienna as Adolf Hitler's troops entered Austria. That broadcast evolved into World News Roundup, which continued until Friday as the nation's longest-running radio newscast.

Over the decades, the network became synonymous with breaking news coverage and major historical events, including the attack on Attack on Pearl Harbor, the D-Day invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the September 11 attacks, and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

The service also helped shape generations of broadcast journalists, including Murrow, Dan Rather, Charles Osgood, Douglas Edwards, and Robert Trout.

Rather recently reflected on the network's significance during an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning.

"CBS Radio should be remembered for becoming a national institution very important to the development of news other than newspapers," Rather said. "It, for many, many years, was a part, and I would argue not a small part, of what held the country together."

Former CBS News Radio Vice President Harvey Nagler called the shutdown "the end of an era in broadcast journalism" and warned that smaller rural stations may be hardest hit because many relied on CBS as their primary source of national and international news.

At its peak, CBS News Radio reached an estimated 32 million weekly listeners and earned dozens of industry honors, including seven consecutive Radio Television Digital News Association awards for overall excellence between 2007 and 2013.

Many former CBS News Radio affiliates are expected to transition to ABC News Radio, while several former CBS personalities are joining Worldwide News Network, a new audio news service launching at midnight Friday.