CBS Radio

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(Redirected from Infinity Broadcasting Corporation)

This article is about the radio group, for the radio network see CBS Radio Network.

Network logo

CBS Radio Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications (which interestingly owns many of the radio stations previously owned by former CBS parent Viacom before 1997) and Cumulus Broadcasting. The corporation owns around 180 radio stations operated from 22 states located across the country. In 2002 its sales were $3.7bn, an increase of just over 1% on the previous year. It is currently part of the CBS Corporation, which also owns CBS Television and the CBS Radio Network, and jointly owns the CW television network. Infinity had operated independently of CBS until the departure of chief executive Mel Karmazin in 2004.

Until recently, the stations' websites were not allowed to stream their programs online. WCBS-AM was the first station in the CBS owned to stream their content over the internet, shortly followed by 1010 WINS, which promotes its station by stating anytime on air and online. Company officials originally thought that there was no profit to be made from streaming.

1 History
2 CBS Radio Network
3 Howard Stern and Free FM
4 Jack FM
5 Major League Baseball
6 External links

The former CBS Radio logo as Infinity Broadcasting

CBS Radio merged with Infinity Broadcasting in 1997, and took on the Infinity Broadcasting moniker. On December 14, 2005, in anticipation of media giant Viacom spinning off the CBS television and radio broadcast properties, the company reverted the division's brand back to CBS Radio.

In August of 2006, CBS Radio announced the sale of its 15 radio stations in Cincinnati, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; Austin, Texas; and Rochester, New York to Entercom Communications. This group deal was granted FCC approval in mid-November of 2007 after it faced regulatory review and numerous challenges for over a year, and officially closed on November 30. Several other stations, most in smaller markets, have also been sold to companies like Border Media Partners and Peak Media Corporation.

Due to the success of MSNBC's morning program Morning Joe, CBS Radio is taking interest in carrying the program in it's morning timeslot. Morning Joe is the unofficial replacement for the long-running Imus in the Morning which has been broadcast on MSNBC since 1996.

For more details on this topic, see CBS Radio Network.

The division's CBS Radio Network provides news and sports to more than 1000 stations, including CBS Radio's all-news stations. Westwood One, which CBS Radio operates, provides the distribution. Among the news offerings are the hourly newscasts and updates , the morning and evening CBS World News Roundup broadcasts (broadcasting's oldest news series), the CBS News Weekend Roundup, and the affiliate Newsfeeds. Among the best-known voices on the network are Bill Whitney, Nick Young, Frank Settipani, Dan Raviv, Cami McCormick, Kimberly Dozier and Lara Logan. CBS Radio also provides sports programming, currently marketed under the Westwood One/CBS Radio Sports banner.

For more details on this topic, see The Howard Stern Show and Free FM.

From 1995 to 2005, Infinity/CBS Radio was the home of controversial and top-rated talk show host Howard Stern, who left due to increasing FCC and station censorship. In January 2006, rock star David Lee Roth, Rover's Morning Glory, and talk show host Adam Carolla replaced Stern in most major radio markets, and CBS Radio launched its new "Free FM" hot talk format in many of these markets. Roth's show was cancelled four months later and CBS Radio announced that XM Radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony would replace Roth on the stations that carried him, despite the irony that the two were fired after the sex act controversy inside of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

As of 2007, the Free FM branding had been discontinued in all markets but Los Angeles (where it continues on KLSX), although three other former Free FM stations still continue a hot talk format, and both the Adam Corolla and Opie & Anthony shows continue to be syndicated to several radio stations nationwide.

For more details on this topic, see Jack FM.

CBS Radio owns the majority of stations in the United States that broadcast the Jack FM format, a radio format that incorporates all types of popular music from the mid-50s to the present. These include stations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Sacramento, Baltimore and many other cities. New York had a Jack FM station, too; that station has reverted back to its oldies format, and Jack is now carried on its HD2 subchannel.

CBS Radio is the largest broadcaster of local Major League Baseball broadcasts. However, in recent years, CBS has decided to drop most of its baseball contracts once they run out. This stems from MLB's deal with XM Satellite Radio. As part of that agreement, CBS and other local rights holders have to make their baseball broadcasts available to XM, but do not have to be compensated for it. In the past two years, CBS has 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, it is expected that New York Yankees games will be renewed on WCBS-AM. [1] CBS's WFAN is the flagship station of the New York Mets and WSCR is the flagship station of the Chicago White Sox.