CBS Radio
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2013) |
Formerly | Infinity Broadcasting (1997–2005) |
---|---|
Company type | Subsidiary |
Industry | Radio broadcasting |
Predecessor | Infinity Broadcasting Westinghouse Broadcasting |
Founded | 1928 1997 (relaunched as Infinity Broadcasting) 2005 (relaunched as CBS Radio) | (Foundation of CBS)
Defunct | November 17, 2017 |
Fate | Acquired by Entercom (now Audacy, Inc.)[1] |
Successor | Entercom (now Audacy, Inc.)[1] |
Headquarters | 345 Hudson Street , New York City, N.Y. 10014 |
Area served | Nationwide |
Key people | Andre Fernandez, president and chief executive officer |
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadcasting since the 1970s. The broadcasting company was sold to Entercom (now known as Audacy, Inc.) on November 17, 2017.[1]
Although CBS's involvement in radio dates back to the establishment of the original
Early origins
CBS Radio is one of the oldest units within CBS Corporation, and has been around since 1928.[2] However, the actual CBS Radio Network (now CBS News Radio) was launched in 1927, when CBS itself was known as United Independent Broadcasters.[3] Columbia Records later joined in and that company was renamed the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. In September 1927, Columbia Records sold the company to William S. Paley and in 1928, Paley streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System.
In 1940, Paley also joined forces with the journalist
History
The company that would become CBS Radio was founded in 1972 as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation by Michael A. Wiener and Gerald Carrus, with the acquisition of KOME, an FM radio station that served the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a publicly traded company twice, in 1986, and again in 1992.
In August 2006, CBS Radio announced the sale of its 15 radio stations in
On April 30, 2008, CBS Radio and AOL entered a partnership (following the dissolution of partnership between AOL and XM Satellite Radio due to the change in Internet royalty rates). The AOL Radio player powered by CBS Radio featured over 200 CBS Radio stations, along with over 200 AOL Radio stations, combining two of the largest online radio networks and giving millions of listeners unlimited and free access to a diverse array of music and programming including news, sports and talk. These stations were folded into the AOL Radio mobile app.[15][16]
In 2008, CBS started the process of paring down its station holdings, with a particular focus on ridding itself of stations in mid-sized markets, and markets where there are no television stations for synergistic advantages.[17] On July 31, 2008, CBS Radio announced that it would sell 50 more radio stations in 12 mid-size markets.[18] however some companies like RBC Capital Markets said CBS Radio is a "melting icecube" and that CBS Corporation would be better off selling the entire radio unit rather than "waiting a couple of years and selling the rest for less."[19]
On December 15, 2008, CBS Radio and Clear Channel Communications reached an agreement to swap seven stations. In this deal, Clear Channel acquired
On August 10, 2009, CBS Radio announced that it would sell the entire
On February 4, 2010, all CBS Radio stations, as well as AOL Radio and Yahoo! Music Radio restricted all non U.S. listeners from streaming online content. CBS Radio redirected to sister property
2011 saw the biggest AC format removal of the company dropping AC for
on December 26.On April 9, 2012, CBS Radio announced that it was selling its West Palm Beach cluster of stations to Palm Beach Broadcasting for $50 Million.[24]
On December 1, 2014, CBS Radio traded 14 stations—its
In May 2016, Judge Percy Anderson ruled in favor of CBS Radio in a lawsuit filed by ABS Entertainment over the use of pre-1972 sound recordings, which are subject to common law state copyright and not federal law, on CBS Radio's oldies stations. ABS argued that because pre-1972 works are not subject to federal copyright, they are not subject to the federal laws providing compulsory licenses for performing the recordings on terrestrial radio and via non-interactive digital streams, and require permission. CBS, however, argued that it did not play pre-1972 sound recordings, but remastered versions of recordings published from compilations with copyrights registered after 1972, making them separate works subject to federal copyright and eligible for compulsory licenses. The court ruled that the remastered recordings contained "multiple kinds of creative authorship, such as adjustments of equalization, sound editing and channel assignment", with a level of creativity suitable enough to generate a new copyright.[26][27]
Merger with Entercom
On March 15, 2016, CBS Corporation CEO
The transaction closed on November 17, 2017,
The CBS News Radio and
Howard Stern and Free FM
From 1985 to 2005, Infinity/CBS Radio was the home of controversial and top-rated talk show host
On February 28, 2006, CBS Radio announced it had filed a lawsuit against Stern, his agent Don Buchwald, and Sirius, arguing that Stern promoted Sirius "to enrich himself unfairly".
As of 2009[update], the Free FM branding has been discontinued in all markets, and no former Free FM station continues to have a hot talk format. The only remaining show still on air is The Sports Junkies on WJFK 106.7 FM DC. All other shows broke up or were canceled. Some, including The Big O & Dukes Show and The Mike O'Meara Show, have been reborn as podcasts.
Jack FM
CBS Radio owned the majority of stations in the
AMP Radio
CBS Radio owned "AMP Radio", a branding created by KROQ-FM program director Kevin Weatherly and APD John Michael on the HD2 channel of KCBS-FM. Much like its competitor Kiss FM, AMP broadcasts contemporary hit radio/top 40 music. On June 2009, the first AMP station was launched in Los Angeles under the callsign KAMP-FM. Over the years, CBS Radio expanded the AMP brand and the CHR/Top 40 format to its stations in Detroit, Boston, Orlando, New York City, Philadelphia, and lastly Dallas. Since the Entercom acquisition in November 2017, all the stations in the aforementioned markets, except for the Los Angeles flagship station, gradually flipped formats. By 2021, the AMP Radio branding was discontinued.
Major League Baseball
This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2019) |
CBS Radio was the largest broadcaster of local Major League Baseball broadcasts. In 2005 and 2007 respectively, CBS dropped the St. Louis Cardinals from KMOX and the Pittsburgh Pirates from KDKA, ending two long relationships between the teams and their flagship stations. However, KMOX reacquired the Cardinals' broadcast rights in 2011, and KDKA's FM sister all-sports station acquired the Pirates' broadcast rights in 2012, in addition to New York Yankees games being renewed on WCBS after the conclusion of the 2011 season, they would have the rights until the end of the 2013 season.
CBS's WFAN is the flagship station of the New York Yankees (they had broadcast the Mets until 2014) and WSCR is the flagship station of the Chicago Cubs. In Philadelphia, WPHT, a frequency that had been the longtime home of the Philadelphia Phillies before parting ways after the 2001 season, reacquired the team's broadcast rights in 2005. As of 2012, those games are now simulcast on sister station WIP-FM. KRLD-FM in Dallas was the flagship station for the Texas Rangers before the 2011 season.
In 2015, the Chicago Cubs moved its radio broadcasts to CBS property WBBM (AM) from its longtime home of WGN (AM).[38] That same year, the Baltimore Orioles began its second stint on all-sports WJZ-FM, four years after it was moved back to its traditional home of WBAL (AM).[39] In 2016, the Cubs rights moved to sister station WSCR as part of a pre-arrangement in the 2015 agreement where WSCR would take over airing games after letting the rights to the Chicago White Sox go after the 2015 season (which now broadcast on WGN (AM)).
All-news radio stations
Prior to the merger with Entercom, CBS Radio operated nearly all of the
They included:
- KCBS (AM) in San Francisco
- KMOX in St. Louis (partial all-news)
- KNX (AM), KNX-FM in Los Angeles
- KRLD (AM) in Dallas (partial all-news)
- KYW (AM) in Philadelphia
- WPHT (AM)in Philadelphia (not an all-news station, but its sister-station)
- WBBM (AM) in Chicago
- WBZ (AM) in Boston
- WCBS (AM) in New York
- WINS (AM) in New York
- WWJ (AM) in Detroit
As part of the merger and in order to comply with FCC Regulations, CBS Radio divested WBZ and ownership of that station was transferred to iHeartMedia.
See also
- List of broadcast stations owned by CBS Radio
- Westinghouse Broadcasting (Group W), the broadcasting unit of Westinghouse.
- Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, the company before its reorganization by Westinghouse.
- Radio.com
- Last.fm
References
- ^ a b c Entercom Communications Corp. (November 16, 2017). "Form 8-K". Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ "CBS Television Network | CBS Corporation". www.cbscorporation.com. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ Time - Radio: La Cadena, June 1, 1942 William S. Paley, La Cadena de las Americas on Content.time.com
- ^ ISBN 978-0-307-78671-5William S. Paley, CBS, Edmund A. Chester on books.google
- ^ Beyond the Black and White TV: Asian and Latin American Spectacle in Cold War America. Han, Benjamin M. Rutgers University Press, 2022 La Cadena de las Americas, Edmund Chester, William S. Paley, Cold War diplomacy on Google Books
- ISBN 978-0-8166-7316-2p. 152-157 Edmund Chester, CBS, Franklin Roosevelt and "La Cadena De Las Americas" on google.books.com
- ^ Current Biographical Yearbook Volume 2. H. W. Wilson Co. New York, 1941 p. 148 Edmund A. Chester CBS Director of Foreign Broadcasting - biography on books.google
- ^ Time - Radio: La Cadena, June 1, 1942 William S. Paley, La Cadena de las Americas on Content.time.com
- ^ "Timeline: Westinghouse Electric Co". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved June 28, 2019.
- ^ "KDKA's Historic Broadcast". March 8, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2019.
- )
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 25, 2015.
- ^ "Viacom buys CBS for $35.6 billion - Sep. 7, 1999". money.cnn.com. Retrieved July 12, 2019.
- ^ Hansell, Saul (June 13, 2008). "AOL Turns the iPhone Into an Expensive Radio". Bits Blog. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ "CBS Radio to Power Yahoo's Launchcast". Tom's Guide. December 3, 2008. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ a b "CBS Plans to Sell Radio Station Group". Variety. March 15, 2016. Retrieved March 15, 2016.
- ^ "First bids on CBS Radio selloffs due today". Radio-Info.com. September 22, 2008. Archived from the original on October 11, 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2011.
- ^ Lauria, Peter (September 22, 2008). "CBS KICKS OFF RADIO STATION AUCTION". New York Post. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ CBS Radio to Swap Five Mid-Size Market Stations for Two Large Market Stations with Clear Channel Communications Archived December 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine (retrieved December 15, 2008)
- ^ CBS to sell three Denver radio stations to Wilks Broadcasting for $19.5 Mln cash – Update – RTTNews (released December 22, 2008)
- ^ CBS Radio Sells Portland Station Group to Alpha Broadcasting Archived August 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine – Oregon Media Central (released August 7, 2009)
- ^ Taylor, Tom (February 15, 2010). "CBS Radio cuts off streaming access beyond U.S. borders". Taylor on Radio-Info. Radio-Info.com. Archived from the original on October 6, 2011. Retrieved May 27, 2011.
- ^ CBS Sells West Palm Beach Cluster – All Access Music Group (released April 10, 2012)
- ^ Venta, Lance (December 1, 2014). "CBS Beasley Deal Closes". RadioInsight. Retrieved December 1, 2014.
- ^ "CBS Radio Has Novel Argument to Legal Demand to Stop Playing Pre-1972 Songs". The Hollywood Reporter. October 21, 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2016.
- ^ "CBS Beats Lawsuit Over Pre-1972 Songs With Bold Copyright Argument". The Hollywood Reporter. June 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2016.
- ^ "CBS Radio Files for IPO as Parent Plans to Jettison Business". Bloomberg.com. July 8, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ "It's the end of The End 107.9. Format will move down the dial ahead of planned merger". Sacramento Bee. Retrieved February 4, 2017.
- ^ "Entercom/CBS Radio Place Future Spin-Offs In Divestiture Trust – RadioInsight". RadioInsight. March 21, 2017.
- ^ Hu, Cherie (November 11, 2017). "Entercom Finalizes Merger With CBS Radio, Becoming No. 2 Radio Operator in US". Billboard. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
- ^ "CBS Sets Radio Division Merger With Entercom". Variety. February 2, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ "CBS and Entercom Are Merging Their Radio Stations". Fortune. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
- ^ "Stations". CBS Sports Radio. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
- ^ a b "Stern Gets Old Tapes, CBS Gets $2M". CBS News. May 25, 2006. Retrieved September 18, 2008.
- ^ CBS Radio files lawsuit against Stern, Sirius CBC March 1, 2006
- ^ "FMQB: Howard Stern Attains Broadcast Archives From CBS Radio, Settles Suit". Archived from the original on February 6, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010.
- ^ Levine, Bruce (June 4, 2014). "Levine: CBS Radio Gains Cubs Broadcasting Rights". chicago.cbslocal.com. (CBS Chicago). Retrieved June 5, 2014.
- ^ Viviano, Mark (January 13, 2015). "Orioles Return to CBS Radio". CBS Baltimore. Retrieved February 10, 2015.