As news consumption tastes evolve, so does CBS News Radio, its leader tells Club meeting

While the core business of CBS News Radio "is delivering breaking news," the "attrition of audience" using radio to receive news has driven CBS correspondents to use their talent as storytellers to branch into new technologies including the production of podcasts, CBS Audio Network Vice President and General Manager Craig Swagler told an Aug. 5 meeting of the National Press Club Broadcast-Podcast team.

Today's listeners are "looking to be entertained," they want to feel they are "pulling up a chair and listening to a discussion," Swagler explained. It is a way of delivering information, but "it isn't radio."

Listeners seek "quality, reliability and honesty" in both formats, he said.. The biggest problem for a podcast producer: "discoverability."  He estimated there are two million podcast programs. Crime is one of the most sought after to[pics. 

The meeting was a hybrid affair with some members, taking advantage of relaxed COVID-19 restrictions, seated in the Club's Cosgrove Room.  Others signed in via Zoom,

Coronavirus restrictions impacted Swagler and the technical and anchor teams at CBS by forcing much of the operation off site, first to the newly opened CBS News Washington bureau and then to the homes of newscasters, Swagler recounted. He called "keeping the network on the air" as America shut down, "the greatest challenge of my career."

Instead of maintaining two broadcast studios in New York and one in Washington, he said, technicians had to make a "major investment in infrastructure. We now have 20 studios in people's homes."

Initially anchors brought down from New York migrated to studios in their Washington hotel rooms to test drive new procedures before moving to their in-home studios, he said. 

Until recently hourly broadcasts were "missing the element of live reporters" broadcasting from the scene of breaking news, he said. But, as restrictions were lifted, CBS has been able able to deploy correspondents to the Miami building collapse, the Olympics and is again staffing the White House, Pentagon and Capitol Hill on a regular basis.  

As listeners slowly return to workplaces, listening to audio in cars is returning to normal levels in many markets, he reported, but as autos evolve, the dashboard has links to more than just local AM and FM stations.  But, comparing local stations to satellite radio, Swagler reminded his audience, "We're free."

The Broadcast-Podcast Team meets monthly usually on the first Thursday an noon for an hour.  The next meeting will be Thursday, Sept. 2. Team membership is open to all members of the Club. Contact Chairman Mark Hamrick at [email protected] to join.