When news no longer matters and everyone is reporting the same story ad infinitum, we have a problem. When there is one side and only one side, we are robots, or Stepford Spouses and don’t really know what’s going on, do we?

Here’s my take on the loss of CBS News Radio. Now we have one network feeding national news that is not regurgitated from television. First though. This is, sad, very, very sad. As a long-time consumer of their news over many years and knowing people who have worked there at some point or another, it’s so disheartening.

First, it was Voice of America, then NPR, now CBS. Imagine you are working to damage information being reported by actual journalists who live for what they do and what they’ve accomplished. They are proud of themselves, and proud Americans. Then we take American news away from outside of the country, also produced by real truth tellers who have poured their hearts into their work. NPR is Tiny Desk Concerts, Fresh Air and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. It’s an echo chamber out there the more we delete these iconic brands. CBS was iconic: Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow, Dan Rather and Harry Smith.

If the rumors are true and the radio network was making under $100,000 a month, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Barter is no longer a viable option for news radio. You get small markets who really want to run news and have no money. They also don’t have salespeople — sometimes they do, but then their salespeople are also their news anchors! (Are we still consolidating talent?) 

But I digress, so you’ve got stations who want news, but have no cash, they can’t sell it because they don’t have salespeople, so they go barter, and they can’t sponsor their news, because they just gave away all their airtime for barter. On the flip-side, you have a network that goes all in on barter, sure they have hundreds of stations, but are any paying a premium to get their premium content? So now the vicious cycle is how do we get news to tiny town America? And how do we get them real news, not manufactured stories that are circulating online and social media? We are dealing with higher prices at the gas pump, grocery stores and in retail. Do people in tiny town America know why? If they don’t have news, and they’re looking at the same things/pages/groups online, how do they know?

What we need is people behind the scenes that care about the talent they are employing. We need people who care about the product they are selling, not their bottom line. This is a behemoth that could have easily written off expenditures, consolidated positions in different regions, charge a premium, help tiny towns figure out creative ways to get or gather their own news and sell digital ads, do podcasts, stream and any number of things. Where are the consultants when you need them?

Anyway… does anybody know how much Fox or ABC radio news networks make per month? Let’s mull this together. 

We want all voices, all shows, all stories to be heard, not a limited few. 💥