May 22, 2026, was a sad day in radio broadcasting history, as the CBS Radio Network went dark  after 99 years.  The final top-of-the hour newscast was at 11:00 PM Eastern.  For most of the day, it was business as usual at the network, as it carried national and world news.  The last broadcast was a farewell message.  You can listen to the 11:00 newscast at this link,  The one-minute bulletin at the bottom of the hour was the very final broadcast, and is at this link.

The network produced this retrospective, which aired during the network’s final week:

One of the network’s oldest affiliates was WCCO in Minneapolis-St. Paul. For a time, it was owned by the network. The owned and operated stations were spun off as Audacy Inc., and those stations switched to the ABC network.  (ABC is a relative newcomer, dating back to 1945 when it was spun off from the NBC Blue Network.)

Coincidentally, one of the long-term WCCO staff members, Denny Long, who had served as announcer (and originally, music director) of WCCO, is retiring at the end of the month after 55 years at the station. As far as I know, he is the last employee of the station from the years when I grew up, when the station was a constant soundtrack for most homes in Minnesota. He did a remote broadcast today, and it was only fitting that this website, devoted as it is to radio history, paid him a visit and wished him the best. He is the handsome gentleman at the left, and you can hear some of his soundchecks covering over half a century at this link.

If you want to make the CBS sounder your phone’s ring tone, here it is: