The Sting Is Gone: CBS News Radio Signs Off After Nearly a Century

Archer's Line Podcast · Mar 20, 2026 · 6m

If you worked in radio news, you know it immediately. That CBS News Radio musical sting — brassy, authoritative, urgent — punching in at the top of every hour like a declaration. This is important. Pay attention. At KNX in Los Angeles, where I spent ten years of my life, that sting was as much a part of the station’s DNA as our own sounder. It told listeners they were connected to something larger than a local newsroom. They were plugged into a national news infrastructure that stretched back nearly a century, all the way to Edward R. Murrow crouching over a microphone in a bombed-out London…