WLDS-WEAI feels CBS News Radio shutdown in Jacksonville

Gary Scott said the CBS News Radio shutdown landed in Jacksonville with a jolt. The WLDS-WEAI general manager said he received the notice by mail two or three months before the service ended, and had to read it two or three times before the news sank in.

For a station that serves Morgan, Scott, Greene and Cass counties, the loss was more than a programming change. WLDS-WEAI describes itself as a source for news and information in west central Illinois, with local sports and programs available through streaming, and the CBS feed had helped round out the station’s hourly newscasts with a familiar national voice. Without it, the station’s product has to rely even more on what local radio does best: fast regional news, farm information, sports and the kinds of updates listeners expect to hear from a hometown outlet.

CBS News Radio signed off for the last time on May 22, ending a service that began in September 1927 and was described by CBS as a precursor to the entire network. Before the shutdown, the network was feeding material to an estimated 700 stations nationwide. CBS News said the move reflected challenging economic realities and a shift in radio programming strategies, and the company also cut about 6% of its workforce, or more than 60 people, in the same round of layoffs.

The retreat rippled across Illinois quickly. Audacy moved WBBM Newsradio in Chicago to ABC News Radio on Thursday, May 21, one day before CBS News Radio went silent, and said many of its stations would carry ABC News Audio so listeners could keep getting national and international news coverage. In Ottawa, WCMY shifted to NBC News Radio soon after learning of the shutdown.

That scramble shows the pressure now facing stations like WLDS-WEAI. When a national feed disappears, the local station has to decide how to fill the gap on air and how much of its identity should be tied to local reporting rather than outside content. For Jacksonville listeners, the biggest change will be what they hear between local stories: fewer ties to a legacy network and a stronger dependence on the WLDS-WEAI staff to keep the station sounding immediate, local and useful.

CBS News Radio’s end closes a chapter that included coverage of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1977 New York blackout, the Gulf War, the 9/11 attacks and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In west central Illinois, that national history now leaves behind a local test of survival, and WLDS-WEAI’s answer will have to be built county by county, broadcast by broadcast.