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NEW YORK — <\/span>CBS News said Friday it is shutting down its storied radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation as part of a round of layoffs, blaming a shift in radio station programming strategies and challenging economic times.<\/p>\n When it went on the air in September 1927, CBS News Radio was the precursor to the entire network, giving a youthful William S. Paley a start in the business. Famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered reports from London during World War II as part of the service.<\/p>\n Today CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country, and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups. The service will end on May 22, the network said Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile this was a necessary decision, it was not an easy one,\u201d CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and president Tom Cibrowski said in a memo to staff on Friday.<\/p>\n Along with newspapers, radio was the dominant force in how Americans got their news from the 1920s through the 1940s, with Americans listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s \u201cFireside Chats\u201d during the Depression, before the format was largely supplanted by television in the 1950s. Radio is even less a force in modern society, with the world online and on phones. Those seeking audio often turn to podcasts before radio.<\/p>\n The front page of CBS News’ website did not immediately carry news of the demise. <\/p>\n Weiss is not a stranger to CBS’ storied history. Addressing her staff in January, three months into her job<\/a> as CBS News boss, she invoked the network’s legendary newsman Walter Cronkite as a symbol of old thinking and said that if the network continues with its current strategy, \u201cwe\u2019re toast.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and said CBS News needs to do stories that will \u201csurprise and provoke \u2014 including inside our own newsroom.\u201d<\/p>\n Weiss, founder of the Free Press website and without broadcast news experience before being hired by CBS parent Paramount\u2019s new management, has quickly become a headline-maker and polarizing figure in journalism. She held a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d story<\/a> critical of President Donald Trump\u2019s deportation policy from being broadcast for a month and has critics watching to see if she\u2019s moving the network in a Trump-friendly direction.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n David Bauder covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n