One of the country’s largest local news radio stations, WCBS Newsradio 880 in New York City, has announced that it will cease operations for the last time on August 26.
The longtime AM station will drop its iconic call sign, change to WHSQ and flip to ESPN New York Sports Radio. The change marks the end of nearly six decades for WCBS as a trusted news source for the tri-state area. The station’s parent company, Audacy, cited ongoing challenges in the news industry as the reason for the change.
As WCBS closed this chapter, morning news co-anchors Wayne Cabot and Paul Murnane spoke with Connecticut Public’s “Morning Edition.”
When he learned that WCBS was being discontinued
Cabot: I was on vacation in Cape Cod wearing flip-flops and shorts.
Murnane: I told Wayne on the phone call right after the meeting they brought us in that it felt like I was floating in space. It’s incredible to work at an AM radio station that will be at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, in 2024. There were thousands. I think thousands (of messages)… and I’ve decided that my first day of retirement is going to feel like I’m working. I want to sit down and go through the messages and thank everyone for their kind words.
The first days of listening (and learning) from WCBS
Cabot: Frankly, and I think you’ll agree, Paul, our real on-the-job training came long before we got the job, as listeners. I started in radio in New Jersey. I worked in Philadelphia for a while and have been here for 37 years.
Murnane: I grew up in Connecticut. I worked in Connecticut stations. I worked in Rhode Island. I worked in Boston. At each of those jobs, I could get in my car after my shift and hear 880 and that gigantic signal. I agree, listening to the station was a sort of hands-on education.
Memorable stories
Murnane: There were so many. There are big stories and there are small stories. Of course, 9/11. Given what our listeners and staff experienced after 9/11, I think it’s a miracle that those firefighters and police officers climbed the stairs of the towers as they were falling apart and tried to save lives until their last breath. I can’t get that out of my head.
Cabot: Also, watching the documentaries years later, showing people on the streets as the dust cloud moves through Lower Manhattan, listening to the radio and hearing our voices, and people are transfixed. They lean in. They want to know what’s going on. It happens very often that when you’re sitting in that booth by yourself, you don’t know if you’re talking to a wall, but when you see the effect that the information you’re putting out there has on people, it makes you sit up and redouble your efforts to take responsibility and recognize the effect you’re having on people.
Murnane: That’s what hurts about all of this: you’re talking to two men who really love radio news and love doing it. It’s so important, and I’m so grateful that I chose radio news as a career and was able to be here.
Cabot: I’m going to miss working with this guy. We just have fun all morning long. We really enjoy each other’s company and I think that’s why it’s worked for so long.
On the legacy of the WCBS
Murnane: I think our departure leaves the radio space, the AM radio space, a rougher place. I wonder if future generations will remember that there was a time when a real human voice spoke to the listener and the listener felt like that person was looking out for them. Nothing replaces a warm, real human radio voice in real time, and people will look at their phone screens and see a push notification; news is not a push notification. I think words on a screen, on a little piece of glass in your hand, don’t have the impact of a real person telling you something.
