The news came in a series of texts from friends and former colleagues, and it’s taken a few days to process their impact.
On Thursday morning last week, WBAL Radio laid off 22 employees and announced lineup changes that eliminate the bulk of its local talk-show programming and gut the station’s award-winning news department. Some who worked for the station for decades were among those who received pink slips.
WBAL Radio was my employer for 32 years, including 21 years where I served as news director. While the changes stung, they did not surprise me. For the last few years, I’ve felt the station was terminally ill.
Growing up in the 60s, everyone seemed to listen to WBAL Radio. Galen Fromme ruled the airwaves with a newsman’s voice that sounded like it came directly from James Earl Jones. There was news and music, and on a snowy morning, families had the radio tuned to 1090 to find out if schools were going to be open that day.
The music continued into the early 80s, with Jack Lacy and Jay Grayson signaling the engineer to cue the disc on the turntable. Grayson’s catch phrase then was “Big bands are back, and I’ve got them.” By the mid 80s, WBAL had begun its transition to news/talk.
It was a time when Baltimore had at least six radio stations with fully staffed news departments that sent reporters out to cover the day’s events. It wasn’t long though before six became five, and then four, and before too long, just two – WBAL and WYPR.
WBAL Radio had the first broadcast report on March 28, 1984, when the Baltimore Colts packed up the Mayflower moving vans and headed to Indianapolis.
In September of 1985, Marylanders tuned in for days to see if Hurricane Gloria was going to land a direct hit on Ocean City or skip up the coast,
In 1986, when a Maryland State Police helicopter went missing and was later found on a hillside in Leakin Park, then Mayor William Donald Schaefer went to the crash site after hearing the news on WBAL. Later that same year, Baltimore tuned in to WBAL when four crewmembers returned home safely after the sinking of the Pride of Baltimore.
In those days, WBAL Radio joined the Baltimore Sun and WJZ-TV as the most dominant news outlets in the market. Over the years, the newsroom included talented journalists like Tom Lattanzi, Chuck Jackson, John Patti, Sue Kopen, Alan Walden, Anne Kramer, Bill Vanko, Linda Foy, Larry Roberts, Scott Wykoff and Robert Lang.
Its investigative reports disclosed the kickback scheme that sent Baltimore City Council President Walter Orlinsky to prison and the corruption scheme that forced Baltimore City Comptroller Jacqueline McLean from office. The station told the stories of the people who made the area unique. From movie nights in Little Italy to the Saint Michael’s bag ladies band, WBAL painted a canvas of the characters who gave Maryland its heart and soul. In the 90s and through 2010, the WBAL Radio newsroom won 21 national Edward R. Murrow Awards, including three as the best large market radio news operation in the country.
In 1984, a former TV news anchor named Ron Smith landed a talk show on WBAL Radio. He became the market’s dominant talk show host, until his untimely passing in 2011. Smith was the self-proclaimed “Voice of Reason” who led informed and respectful discussions with listeners from both sides of the political aisle. With Smith, Allan Prell, and Dave Durian, WBAL was a ratings and revenue powerhouse.
Times were different then. There was no internet, no social media, no podcasts, and no streaming. The managerial forces behind the station’s success were Al Burk, David Barrett, Ed Kiernan, and Jeff Beauchamp. It was Beauchamp’s vision that made WBAL one of the first stations in the country to stream its signal on the internet. It was Beauchamp’s leadership that pushed the talk shows into the ratings stratosphere.
The radio business began its decline with the deregulation that came with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Small, independent stations were soon gobbled up by large media companies who owned multiple stations in the same market. Those consolidations always resulted in the elimination of jobs. Hearst, which owns WBAL, owns just one other radio station, WBAL’s sister station WIYY/98 Rock. The company’s broadcast focus is television, with its stations reaching 24 million households in 39 states.
While Hearst celebrated WBAL Radio’s 100th anniversary with a gala at M & T Bank Stadium last October, there were precursors to the station’s fate. WCBS Newsradio in New York had ended its historic all-news format in August 2024 after a 57 year run. Earlier this year, CBS shuttered its network radio news operation after nearly a century.
WBAL’s listenership eroded gradually and its dominance deteriorated. Even as the flagship for both the Orioles and Ravens, the numbers continued to shrink. In the latest Nielsen Audio Monthly Ratings released on August 11, the former perennial number one station ranked just 10th in the market. It was topped by public radio’s WYPR and had WTMD breathing down its back.
These days, people find out if schools will be closed on a snowy morning via text messages and emails. Scrolling through Facebook, Instagram and X on a smartphone satisfies the news fix for many, and there’s certainly no absence of opinion on social media. Apps like Waze get you around a highway crash better than any broadcast traffic report. My teenage daughter never listens to the radio. She relies on Spotify for her music playlist.
Staffing a newsroom and producing local talk programming is a huge expense. At an average annual salary of $50,000, the cuts announced this week by WBAL will likely save more than $1.1 million a year. Gone are midday talk host T.J. Smith, afternoon host Angelette Aviles, and even Baltimore’s favorite reporter, Scott Wykoff. Thankfully, mornings will remain local, with C4 and Bryan Nehman.
While some will speculate that there was a master plan to take the station hard right in its viewpoint, the reality is much simpler. Broadcasting is a business, and you can’t stay in business if you don’t make a profit.
While bitter, the changes at WBAL are the result of radio’s reality, and management is forced to play the hand it was dealt. It is a loss for our community. Local voices providing news and informed discourse have been erased. But the fact is many of us contributed to the change.
We don’t listen to the radio like we used to, nor do we read newspapers like we used to. In fact, we don’t even watch television the way we used to.
And sadly, we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone.
Thank you for this history. It helps to understand how the local media ecosystem is changing and diminishing.
This is so sad because local radio stations, like WBAL and WCBM, are where real Baltimore people, can call in and express their concerns. I carry a small radio around with me as I do chores and of course, in the car. But I am in that age bracket that does stuff like that. ( although one of my sons always listened too). I think that WBAL is making a mistake.
WBAL has been a right wing station for some time now. Their demographic is, frankly, dying off. That was a business decision that has led to this result.
There are external factors as well but this is NOT should not be taken as a broader indicator of how radio is failing. Adapt or die.