Industry Vet Says Shutting Down CBS News Radio 'Illogical'

CBS News under Bari Weiss shut down its 99-year-old radio division, a low-cost operation that reached an estimated 20 million listeners a week—far more than the network’s “Evening News With Tony Dokoupil,” which is lucky to top 4 million viewers.

The move has drawn criticism as illogical. The radio unit was a small slice of the overall broadcast budget. 

Veteran contributor Larry Magid, who spent more than two decades at CBS News Radio before shifting to a contributor role in 2020 with the nationally distributed “The ConnectSafely Report,” called the decision a sign that Weiss does not value traditional broadcast.

Larry Magid

“She definitely does not care about traditional media,” Magid said. “She may care about podcasting. She may care about blogging. But it doesn’t strike me that she has a real understanding of the value of traditional broadcast.”

Profitability remains disputed. A New York Times report in March, citing a person familiar with the company, said CBS News was “unprofitable.” The Los Angeles Times reported monthly radio revenues had fallen “as low as $67,000, according to a network executive not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.” 

Magid said he was told the division made money. “Even if it made a dime, as a public service, to kill it, it doesn’t make sense.”

A CBS News executive told Page Six Hollywood that plans to wind down radio were already underway when Weiss started in October. The executive said Weiss fought to keep the division, viewing it as a valuable institution, but the decision was made in February on financial grounds.

About 70 staffers sat through what was described as a tone-deaf speech by Weiss that appeared cribbed from Wikipedia.

Radio’s reach remains large. A Nielsen report earlier this year found radio reaches 93% of U.S. adults each month, the top-reaching media platform in the country, including 93% of Black consumers, 94% of Hispanic consumers, and 89% of the 18-34 audience, with strong listenership among drivers.

Magid recorded the final CBS News Radio segment on May 22 and said he was “devastated.” By May 29, “ConnectSafely Report”—a twice-weekly, one-minute feature on online safety, privacy, security, and AI—returned via an independent distribution network without missing an episode.

The former CBS affiliate manager provided Magid a list of stations that had carried the feature. Many asked to keep it. Fifteen stations now air the program in markets including Boston, Chicago, and Washington, and Magid said the list is growing. He works from a home studio in the Bay Area that he described as far more comfortable than the space Weiss had reduced CBS News Radio to—“a room about the size of a small bedroom”—compared with the large historic newsroom Walter Cronkite once used.