WCBS New York ditching historic call letters and all-news format

[TheFugitive]

WCBS-AM 880, an historic powerhouse 50,000 watt station in New York, will dump it's all-news format later this month, two days short of the format's 57th. anniversary.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/12/sports/espn-ny-taking-over-wcbs-880-am-signal-in-radio-stunner/

ESPN sports programming, currently heard in New York on 1050AM/98.7FM, will move over to 880 and the station's call letters will change to WHSQ.

WCBS has been the flagship station of the CBS Network since the 1920's.  It adopted the WCBS call sign in 1946.  Station owners cited the extremely high cost of running an all-news format along with declining ad revenues as reasons for the change.

This is not unlike when historic 50,000 watt WNBC adopted an all-sports format and changed it's call sign to WFAN in 1988.  That station had likewise been the longtime flagship for the NBC Network.

1010 WINS, which pretty much invented the all-news format, will continue with it for the time being.