While this isn’t a local radio story per se, it has certain echoes for the big chains here.
 
It comes from the N.Y. Daily News, which indicates staff members of co-owned WCBS-AM and WINS-AM New York are upset because owner Entercom wants to integrate the staff in order to save costs. Both stations have boasted all-news formats for decades (WINS went from Top 40 to all news in 1965, while WCBS followed two years later) and have been battling it out for supremacy in the radio news ratings ever since.
 
Now they’re owned by the same company and the employees are worried that the distinctive personalities of each outlet will change when the same voices appear on both of them at the same time.

Media giant Entercom's plans for “cross-utilization” spark fears NYC radio stations 1010 Wins and WCBS 880 could be melded
 
I’m divided on this. While I see that the union wants to protect their jobs, it’s hard to argue against sharing a single organization’s considerable resources. In our own local market, CFTR regularly shares reporters and voices with Rogers co-owned City TV. Carl Hanstke does reports for CityNews as does Momin Qureshi. Weather forecasters from TV wind up on 680. And the traffic people are often on both stations during drivetime. Sportscasters from The Fan also turn up regularly on their news counterpart down the dial.
 
The same goes for Bell Media, where CP24 and CTV reporters often wind up as guests or supplying actualities on CFRB. All three simulcast the CTV National News at 11 every night.
 
And it can certainly be argued that 640 has benefited a lot from its tie-ins with Global News, using material and resources from the TV side to carry a lot more material like live press conferences, something they were never capable of doing in the past.
 
Still, in most cases (The Fan being the exception) these are TV and radio stations sharing resources – not competing radio outlets.
 
I get where the WCBS and WINS people are coming from. But I’m not sure it’s reasonable to expect that, with such a labour-intensive format and in a time where radio budgets are being squeezed, the company could ever be convinced to do it any other way.
 
I hate all the consolidation that’s taken place in radio in the modern era, but it’s a fact of life – and to not share those resources admittedly doesn’t make a lot of economic sense.
 
I’ll be curious to find out how this dispute plays out, although I expect the union won’t win this battle. And in the end, that’s a sad thing for the employees - and the audiences of both stations.