The Columbia Broadcasting Company

The Columbia Broadcasting Company or "CBS" in layman's terms was founded in 1927 as a radio network under the "United Independent Broadcasters" name, which was a radio-broadcasting network. The name was changed to CBS in 1928, which was the same year that William S. Paley, the son of a cigar making tycoon, took over control of CBS with his fathers financial support. Paley took over CBS for $400,000 and inherited a network that consisted of 22 affiliates and 16 employees. Although he had little technical knowledge of radio, Paley believed he could only attract advertisers if he delivered large audiences. To fulfill this goal, he decided to give CBS programming to local radio stations for free, as long as they agreed to surrender any part of their schedule to advertiser sponsored CBS network shows. In less than a decade, CBS had blossomed to 114 stations from 22 when Paley took over. Another one of Paley's gifts was his ability to recognize talent, he quickly signed mega stars such as Bing Crosby, Kate Smith and Morton Downey. But such was the case in those days, those stars were quickly lured away by highly popular rival NBC for more money.

However, all was not lost for the young Paley. What he lost in stars he got back in news coverage. Don't forget I'm still talking radio here. Paley hired Edward Klauber, a former New York Times editor and Paul White who was a former United Press reporter, they began to build a solid news division at CBS. "CBS News" really didn't come together until Klauber hired some guy you probably never heard of by the name of Edward Murrow. Klauber assigned Murrow to London as director of the European talks. In March of 1937, before the start of the Great War, Murrow teamed with William Shirer to report on "Anschluss". These reports formed the foundation for what would become "The CBS World News Roundup" which, during World War II Murrow assembled a great team of reporters commonly referred to as "Murrow's Boys" who consisted of Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood, Howard Smith, Winston Burdett, Richard Hottelet and Larry LeSueur. Murrow would end up reporting on and airing one of the greatest accounts of his experiences and descriptions of touring the Nazi concentration camps, which we heard in class.

Meanwhile back in the states, by the time that the war had ended, television was starting to get important as the networks looked toward the future and they were eager to get all the stars and ratings they could get their hands on. As payback to NBC for stealing all of their radio stars in the '30's, Paley figured he could get all of his old stars back and more by paying them more than NBC could ever think of. He would accomplish this by "subcontracting" them. This saved him millions in taxes he would have owed the federal government. In this "Great Talent Raid" Paley convinced the likes of Jack Benny, Amos & Andy, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason to come and work for CBS, which they did, because the money was there. CBS also distanced itself from NBC when the CBS research center led by Peter Goldmark, developed the long playing phonograph recording technique and color television.

In 1946 Paley hired Dr. Frank Stanton to be president of CBS with the hopes he would increase CBS' broadcasting presence. Frighteningly aware of how fast television was expanding, Paley began increasing CBS investments in television programming. With the stars he raided from NBC, and CBS original shows such as I love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, Arthur Godfrey and Gunsmoke, CBS was the ratings leader for almost 20 years.

Unfortunately, fame has a price. The 1950's were the peak of the Cold War and the "Red Scare" in America. Led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy he set out to cleanse the country of all the communists who infiltrated into American society to destroy the American way of life - or so they said. Anyway, this got serious with all the blacklisting, the trials involving Hollywood actors, AWARE, HUAC, all of the "Red Channels" with more than 300 names on it. It got so bad at one point that CBS was referred to as the "Communist Broadcasting System." The Network itself got caught up in all the Communism mumbo-jumbo by requiring loyalty oaths from all of it's employees, and hiring a former member of the FBI to head it's "loyalty clearance office"; I'm serious here. McCarthy seemed to have the country in his hands when he went too far in an action that would prove to be the beginning of the end for Mr. McCarthy. What did he do you may ask? He accused Edward Murrow, today's equivalent of um...... well, I don't think anyone compares to Murrow (but you might be able to compare him to Tom Brokav in name recognition only) to being a communist. Once word got to Murrow he decided to do something that hadn't been done with McCarthy yet, he invited the Senator on his "See it now" program to explain to the country how much of a communist Murrow and other Americans are. After McCarthy was finished screaming and yelling at the camera most Americans figured he was crazy and know longer paid attention to him. Murrow looked like a genius to most people except his CBS executives, and a few years later in 1961 resigned to head the United States Information Agency.

If CBS put any energy into anything it was the news. CBS news proved to be the foundation of the whole company. This strong base was needed as CBS was in the middle of a quiz show scandal. It was also becoming more and more apparent that Paley was starting to be more concerned with making profits his number one priority. A strong example of this was in 1966 when Paley chose to air reruns of I Love Lucy instead of the Senate Judiciary Hearings on Vietnam.

Before I forget and leave out one of the most important events in CBS News broadcast