After nearly 60 years, WCBS 880 was canceled on Sunday night, with Wayne Cabot being the last voice heard on New York’s Audacy station.
Earlier this month, Audacy announced it had entered into a deal with Good Karma Brands to lease the 880 AM signal as ESPN New York moves away from its 98.7 FM signal. With the decision to drop WCBS Newsradio 880, Audacy will now focus all of its news power on 1010 WINS, which offers an FM simulcast on 92.3.
The station broadcast its WCBS Magazine Program that highlighted the station’s long history and standing in the market, including a look at some of the most recent news events and the station’s jingles and sounds through the decades.
In the final 15 minutes, longtime anchor Wayne Cabot led the network’s farewell address, naming dozens of anchors and reporters as well as executives at the venerable news network.
In the final two minutes of the broadcast, Cabot told a poignant story about listening to the station as a teenager and starting there decades later, and what it meant to him to work as a morning news anchor in the city.
“To paraphrase a CBS News legend, good night and good luck,” Cabot said. “They’ll ask, ‘Why does this radio station mean so much? Why are the reactions like this?’ And I really can’t speak for anyone else, I can speak for myself. My parents split up when I was 11. We shared Christmas, and when I was at Dad’s house, he gave me a clock. And this one had a beam on the top that beamed the time up to the ceiling. I wanted to make sure it was set right, so I went to the station I was listening to in the back seat of the car on WCBS to make sure the time was just right.
“And I kept listening, and soon I was addicted to it as a 12-, 13-year-old. When I was 14, my dad drove me to the radio station in New York City during the morning rush hour and showed me the place where I am now signing off in 2024.”
Cabot then played part of the Beatles song “Imagine” and gave a shout out to WCBS 880 producer Ray Martell. He then thanked the station management for allowing the station to say goodbye.
“Chris Olivero, Ben Mevorach, Ivan Lee, our bosses, stepped up and got the authority to say goodbye and do one last show. That’s something very rare,” Cabot admitted. “I thank them for that. I thank my father for driving me to New York City in 1978. Parents, you never know what effect these spontaneous expressions of love and attention can have on your children.”
“I’m Wayne Cabot and for the last time, this is WCBS New York,” Cabot concluded.
And so ended the final chapter of WCBS 880’s nearly 60-year history as a New York news station.
