What happens to L.A.’s KNX and other stations when CBS News Radio goes away?

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Last Friday’s news that CBS News Radio was shutting down prompted heartfelt appreciation for a service that was essential to the early success of CBS, almost a century ago. It also honored the legacy of pioneering journalists like Edward R. Murrow, whose important work reached a vast audience through the radio network.

The 700 stations that broadcast CBS News Radio are now dealing with a more immediate problem: finding new national news programs. CBS Radio News will stop broadcasting on May 22nd.

The closing of CBS News’ well-known radio department was part of a larger staff reduction impacting 6% of all CBS News employees. Local stations that partner with CBS News found out about the changes just moments before the news became public.

Local all-news radio stations used social media to let listeners know they were still broadcasting, clarifying that only the national news from CBS was being removed.

KNX, Los Angeles’s 24/7 news radio station and a CBS affiliate since 1936, recently addressed its upcoming changes, assuring listeners that ‘KNX News’ will continue to be available.

Until 2017, KNX radio was owned by CBS. In that year, Audacy (formerly Entercom), a New York-based company, bought CBS’s radio stations, including KNX. Even after the sale, KNX and other Audacy news stations – like WBBM in Chicago, KCBS in San Francisco, and WWJ in Detroit – continued to broadcast CBS news updates every hour.

Audacy’s news stations, with roughly 9 million monthly listeners, delivered about a third of all U.S. coverage for CBS News Radio – more than any other radio group.

Audacy announced it’s looking for a new source of national and international news to replace CBS News Radio, but assured listeners that this change won’t impact its 24/7 news stations.

According to Audacy’s chief business officer, Chris Oliviero, most of their news and talk shows are created by local teams. They’re also exploring partnerships with national news organizations to keep providing listeners with high-quality, trustworthy content.

It will take work to assure listeners and advertisers that the stations won’t really change much after CBS is no longer involved. KNX and the other all-news stations have been closely linked to CBS for a long time, as CBS originally created their news format back in the late 1960s.

In addition to regular news broadcasts, these stations aired “The Osgood Files” – a very popular commentary segment hosted by the late Charles Osgood, who was known for his work on “CBS Sunday Morning.” This segment ran for 46 years, ending in 2017. For decades, listeners also recognized the familiar music and sound effects used to identify CBS News programs on these stations.

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Audacy, which owns several radio stations, is now focusing on attracting younger listeners who are increasingly tuning into podcasts, audiobooks, and other talk-based audio content.

So, CBS News Radio might be replaced, and the frontrunner seems to be ABC News Audio. As a news junkie who listens to the radio a lot, I already know they’re huge – they’re the biggest radio news network in the country with around 1,500 stations carrying their stuff. Actually, Audacy, the company that owns a bunch of stations, already uses ABC News for things besides their top-of-the-hour news updates, so this makes a lot of sense.

KFI-AM in Los Angeles broadcasts news updates from ABC News Audio. ABC News Audio decides which radio stations can carry its news in each city individually, according to a network spokesperson.

Fox News Media, known for its conservative cable channel, also has a radio service that provides news updates every hour. The service features its own reporters and is broadcast on hundreds of radio stations, though the exact number isn’t publicly available.

Fox News Radio provides factual news coverage and is expected to be picked up by many conservative talk radio stations currently using content from CBS News.

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2026-03-24 13:37