For decades, WBBM-AM 780, Chicago’s all-news station, has ushered in each hour like clockwork with a five-note musical sounder, followed by network news from CBS Radio.
Those familiar notes will sound for the last time next month after CBS pulls the plug on its nearly century-old radio network. While plans for the top-of-the-hour newscast remain up in the air, WBBM station management is confident they will successfully fill the five-minute void with another national network or local programming.
“I think all options are on the table,” said Craig Schwalb, brand manager and news director at WBBM. “We’ll make the best decision for Chicago and for our station when the time comes.”
Schwalb, 54, an Illinois native and veteran radio news executive, took the reins at WBBM in January 2023. He now must navigate a challenge that none of his predecessors at the formerly CBS-owned station ever faced: the demise of the network.
CBS News announced last month it was ending its storied radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation, blaming economic conditions and the changing media landscape. The network, which provides news programming to 700 stations across the country, will shut down for good on May 22.
Acquired by the fledgling CBS Radio Network in 1931, WBBM was integral to the development of a national news platform that predated and survived the advent of television. But like other legacy media, CBS News Radio has struggled with online competition in the digital age.
WBBM has carved its own enduring legacy as a Chicago radio powerhouse. In 1968, the station shifted from news-talk to all-news, pioneering a format that became dominant in major markets across the country, and a staple on the AM band. In 2011, WBBM began simulcasting its news programming on 105.9 FM, broadening its reach and defending its turf against a short-lived FM news upstart.
Audacy, one of the largest radio chains in the U.S., acquired WBBM as part of a cluster of Chicago stations through a 2017 megamerger with CBS Radio. The debt-laden acquisition precipitated a nine-month stay in Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Philadelphia-based Audacy in 2024.
WBBM kept its affiliation with CBS News Radio post-merger, airing top-of-the hour newscasts, special reports and audio versions of CBS-TV news shows such as “60 Minutes” and “Face the Nation.” Bolstered by the network, WBBM’s comprehensive local news coverage has continued to resonate with Chicago listeners.
A perennial ratings leader, WBBM ranked second in the latest Chicago audience survey with a 6.0 share among listeners 6+ in March, according to Nielsen. Rock station WXRT-FM 93.1, which is also owned by Audacy, topped the March ratings with a 6.1 share.
But change is in the air at WBBM with the imminent end of CBS News Radio. Options to replace the programming include signing on with other radio networks or employing WBBM’s staff to create a local top-of-the-hour newscast, Schwalb said.
“We have incredible resources in our newsroom,” Schwalb said. “I don’t have any hesitation about filling time at the top of the hour with our great local news. But we also recognize there’s some amazing network options in the market.”
While Schwalb declined to name specific options, ABC and NBC are among the legacy radio networks on the table to replace CBS at hundreds of soon-to-be disenfranchised affiliates across the country, according to industry analysts.
NBC News Radio, for example, features similar hourly national newscasts and special event coverage that may provide a fairly seamless transition. The network has more than 1,000 affiliates nationwide, primarily offering its services in exchange for commercial airtime during the newscasts.
“NBC is one of a handful of companies that are making an aggressive play to get out there with their affiliate relations department and get some new affiliates,” said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, a radio trade publication.
Other prominent national radio networks such as Fox and Salem may be in the hunt as well. But those networks are more partisan, offering a politically conservative slant that Harrison said may not sit well with longtime WBBM listeners after more than a half century of “down the center” news.
Harrison was also skeptical that WBBM would go with locally produced national news to replace CBS.
“If they’re going to try to replace something that stood for years as a national network that 700 radio stations think enough of to put on the air, well, that’s sort of a high bar,” Harrison said.
Schwalb said he is working with the corporate executive team at Audacy to chart the station’s course and determine what comes next — local or network — to fill the “prime real estate” at the top of the hour after CBS Radio is no more.
With only one month left in a nearly 100-year relationship, time is running out.
“Conversations have been going on since the announcement, and I think we get closer and closer to a decision every day,” Schwalb said. “But we have to be very careful and be very diligent about making sure the product that we select is going to make sense from a listener perspective and a revenue perspective as well.”
When the news of CBS Radio’s demise hit last month, it raised fears among some WBBM listeners that the station’s all-news format was in jeopardy, Schwalb said. But the five-minute network newscasts represent a high-profile fraction of the 24/7 news content aired by WBBM.
The bulk of the Chicago audience, Schwalb said, tunes in for local news.
“CBS has been a great top-of-the-hour news piece for a long time, but it’s a very small percentage of what we do in a given hour between business, traffic and weather together on the eights, local news — the strongest local newsroom in Chicago radio,” Schwalb said.
For listeners of a certain age, however, the loss of CBS News Radio will certainly be felt. If nothing else, the iconic five-note sounder will likely be ringing in their collective ears long after the hourly network newscasts end next month.
Nostalgic fans who want to ensure the news sounders live on can actually download four versions of the jingles dating back to the 1980s – replete with top-of-the-hour “bongs” — as ringtones from the CBS News site, at least for now.
And while WBBM will soon lose that sounder and CBS News, Schwalb said the station’s primary mission will remain the same when the network affiliation ends.
“We’ll miss it, but it’s not what defines us,” Schwalb said. “We are a local news radio station, and we will be once CBS top-of-the-hour news goes away. We’ll have another solution there, and people can feel confident that WBBM Newsradio will be there for them, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That doesn’t change no matter what happens.”
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
