CBS News Radio shuttered on Friday after nearly a century of broadcasting, with its final newscast coming to close with the voice of Edward R. Murrow and his famous sign off, “Good night, and good luck.”
Then came the final words around 11:31 p.m. ET, “CBS News special report. I’m Christopher Cruz.”
The network announced in March that CBS News Radio would be shuttering due to budget cuts under new owners Paramount Skydance.
Also heard on the final newscast were other current anchors, including Steve Kathan, the anchor of CBS News Roundup, who noted that “America’s longest running newscast signs off for the last time.”
Earlier in the evening, there were retrospectives of the radio network’s storied history, including Murrow’s famous broadcasts from London during the blitz of World War II. Among those offering his memories was Marvin Kalb, 95, who said, “Every time that I could do a piece for the roundup, I felt honored. It wasn’t just a job. It was a calling.” Dan Rather, 94, said that “radio was a kind of magic carpet. They would take you there. They would take you to the war.”
The network had served around 700 radio stations, including those owned by Audacy, which purchased CBS’s radio stations in 2017. A number of those stations have already switched to ABC News for their regular newscasts.
The radio network dates to the birth of CBS in 1927. Brooke A. Byers, the granddaughter of CBS founder William S. Paley, wrote in The Guardian on Friday that the closure “represents another crack in the crown jewel that we once relied upon to be educated citizens.”
Earlier in the day, the Writers Guild of America, East issued a statement criticizing the closure as “a single reckless and shortsighted decision” on the part of Paramount CEO David Ellison and Bari Weiss, the editor in chief of CBS News.
“This closure erodes a vital news source for listeners of more than 700-affiliated stations across the country and twenty-six WGAE members with decades of experience and dedication to journalism will be out of work,” the union said.
In announcing the closure in March, Weiss and Tom Cibrowski, the president of CBS News, wrote that a shift “in radio station programming strategies, coupled with challenging economic realities, has made it impossible to continue the service.”
They also noted the long history of the network.
“CBS News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927.”
