San Francisco -- Several veteran TV news reporters, including Bay Area icons Bill Schechner and Manny Ramos, were laid off Monday at CBS 5-TV (KPIX) in San Francisco in an apparent cost-cutting move.

The reporters, well known to Bay Area viewers for decades, were among 14 newsroom employees let go.

"When I walked in, they told me it was going to be a bad day in the newsroom," Ramos said. "Then they told me it was going to be a bad day for me, too."

Ramos, who has worked at the station since 1980 and has won three Emmy awards for his news coverage, said he was told by station executives that it was "purely a business decision."

Also laid off were Emmy-winning reporters Tony Russomanno and John Lobertini, along with several producers and editors.

Schechner, 66, who has been at the station off and on for 17 years and won two Emmys, said the announcement took him by surprise.

"I'm not ready to stop," he said with a smile. "There are still stories I want to do, and I'm sad I won't be able to do them for KPIX."

The four laid-off reporters have, among them, a total of 61 years of service at the station. Schechner has been on TV in the Bay Area since 1972.

CBS 5-TV communications director Akilah Monifa said the station had no comment on the layoffs except that they were not disciplinary. General manager Ron Longinotti declined to comment.

Ramos said he was trying to take the news philosophically and that a glass of scotch was helping him to do it.

"I've had a great time at Channel 5," he said. "When I started in the business, people always told you that you'd be fired every couple of years. But I was still pretty surprised. I never expected it."

CBS 5-TV, the CBS affiliate in the Bay Area, first went on the air in 1948 and is the oldest television station in Northern California.

E-mail Steve Rubenstein at srubenstein@sfchronicle.com.