WCBS/880 AM News Format Ends; ESPN New York Radio Takes Over Frequency

WCBS/880 AM, the news radio station that New Yorkers have known for decades with its “traffic and weather combined in the 80s,” will sign on in August 2019. Parent company Audacy announced Monday, Feb. 26.

In an ongoing sports talk radio battle, Audacy will license the 880 frequency to ESPN New York, a competitor to its own sports talk radio station WFAN. ESPN New York will carry Knicks and Rangers games. The Mets will continue to be heard at 880 a.m.

Dozens of employees, including some of the most famous names in New York radio, will be laid off in the move, according to the union that represents them.

In an on-air interview Monday on 880, morning anchor Wayne Cabot described the news as a “punch in the gut.”

Radio and podcast giant Audacy said in a press release that it will now focus its news efforts in the New York City metropolitan area on its other prominent New York station, 1010 WINS, which it called the most-listened-to news station in the United States.

“New York has always been unique in proudly supporting two news broadcast brands, but the news business has undergone significant changes,” said Chris Olivero, New York market president at Audacy. “The headwinds facing local journalism across the country have made it necessary to strategically reimagine how we deliver news to achieve maximum impact.”

Audacy, which won court approval for a plan to emerge from bankruptcy earlier this year, “needs to focus its resources in a way that is most efficient and financially prudent in one of its most important markets,” said Adam Jacobson, editor of Radio and Television Business Report, a magazine that covers the broadcast industry. “Having two news stations in the same market, under the same ownership in 2024, just doesn’t make sense.”

Jacobson said hiring the staff needed to gather news can be expensive, and news broadcasting faces competition from unregulated digital media. Also this year, Congress failed to pass a law that would have required automakers to include AM broadcast radio as standard equipment in new cars.

The signing comes amid a years-long shrinkage in news coverage, said George Podarki, a professor of journalism and community partnerships and training editor at the city’s public radio station. “It’s sad to see local journalism shrink,” he said. “Having local journalism and local journalists on the ground is critical to democracy.”

Nearly two dozen employees will be laid off because of Audacy’s decision, according to their union, the Writers Guild of America East.

Among them are on-air journalists who have been there for more than 30 years, such as chief meteorologist Craig Allen and Tom Kaminski, managing editor of traffic and transit information. Also expected to leave are morning anchors Paul Murnane and Cabot, as well as afternoon anchors Steve Scott and Michael Wallace, and nighttime anchor Levon Putney.

Writers, editors and technical support staff at the station will also be laid off.

Audacy spokesman David Heim said he could not confirm names or numbers. Heim also said he could not disclose the terms of Audacy’s marketing agreement with Good Karma Brands, the parent company of ESPN New York.

In a phone interview, Allen, 67 — who has spent 43 of 880’s longest-running correspondents, with 30 of those years broadcasting from his Merrick studio — called Monday’s announcement “shocking. It’s just a sudden end, a loss in the family.”

1010 WINS and WCBS — or simply “880” to generations of listeners — have battled for local radio news supremacy dating back to the mid-1960s, with the launch of all-news formats (1965, for 1010, and 1967, for 880). 1010 has long been a traditionally stronger station in New York City, while 880’s stronghold has been Long Island, Connecticut, and the northern and eastern suburbs in particular. WCBS’s antenna, perched on a small rocky outcrop off City Island, directs much of its firepower eastward, and can be heard clearly as far as Rhode Island.

The battle largely ended after Philadelphia-based Audacy — then called Entercom — bought the CBS-owned stations in 2017 and began simulcasting 1010 on 92.3 FM in 2022. The move was designed to introduce younger listeners to 1010 and boost listenership beyond the five boroughs.

Since then, 1010’s ratings have improved dramatically, while 880’s have declined. Allen said Monday that there were signs that Audacy favored 1010, but the idea that the competition would become a zero-sum game — where one wins and the other loses — was out of the question, he said. That’s because 880 — backed by a “clear channel” signal of 50,000 — has remained steady throughout the tri-state area.

Sophia Hall, a Long Island reporter in the 1980s, said the mood in the newsroom was somber. While Hall will continue to appear on 1010, she said she will miss the 880 job she started in 2001.

She said she met young people who grew up listening to the station in their parents’ cars on the way to school, and older listeners who had been following for decades. “It was a real dream to get the job when I was in my mid-20s, just to be carrying 880 microphones every day and interviewing people,” she said.