Radio nerditry: NYC is about to lose WCBS-AM 880, one of the city's two 24 hour local news / traffic / weather format radio stations. Next week it will switch to an ESPN-sports format.
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Radio nerditry: NYC is about to lose WCBS-AM 880, one of the city's two 24 hour local news / traffic / weather format radio stations. Next week it will switch to an ESPN-sports format.
Locally-produced broadcast radio is hanging by a thread in most of the US, and is often one of the only remaining sources of local journalism.
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NYC had already suffered from consolidation in broadcast radio. The other all-news station, WINS 1010, was purchased by the same owner as WCBS, but though they shared some resources, they also maintained separate news departments.
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One of the things I've been doing for the last few years when I visit a city is record an aircheck (an over-the-air recording) of a local radio station, if one exists. Sadly, the number of defunct stations in my little archive is growing, and visits to places with no local station to record are becoming more common.
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Some of the role of local radio has been supplanted by podcasts and other Internet resources. But they're only an imperfect replacement. Broadcast radio has an inherently local quality; by design it serves a geographic community. And that's an especially important kind of resource in emergencies and other situations where Internet access may not be available or reliable.
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@mattblaze this makes me so sad…