CBS Broadcasting Inc. (
CBS) is a
major American
television
network. CBS started out as a
radio
network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's
former name,
Columbia Broadcasting System. The
network is sometimes referred to as the
Eye
Network or more simply
The Eye, in
reference to the shape of the company's logo. It has also been
called the
Tiffany Network, which alludes to the
perceived high quality of CBS programming during the tenure of its
founder
William S. Paley (1927–1990).It can also refer to some
of CBS's first demonstrations of
color
television, which were held in a former
Tiffany & Co. building in New York
City in 1950, thus earning it the name "Color broadcasting system"
back when such a feat was innovative.
The network has its origins in United Independent Broadcasters
Inc., a collection of 16 radio stations that was bought by
William S. Paley in 1928 and renamed the Columbia
Broadcasting System. Under Paley's guidance, CBS would first become
one of the largest radio networks in the United States and then one
of the big three American broadcast television networks. In 1974,
CBS dropped its full name and became known simply as
CBS,
Inc. The
Westinghouse Electric
Corporation acquired the network in 1995 and eventually adopted
the name of the company it had bought to become
CBS
Corporation. In 2000, CBS came under the control of
Viacom, which coincidentally had begun as a spin-off
of CBS in 1971. In late 2005, Viacom split itself and reestablished
CBS Corporation with the CBS
television network at its core. CBS Corporation and the new Viacom
are controlled by
Sumner Redstone
through
National Amusements, the
parent of the two companies.
History
Early years
The origins of CBS date back to the creation, on January 21, 1927
in Chicago, of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network.
Established by New York talent agent
Arthur Judson, United soon looked for
additional investors; the Columbia Phonographic Manufacturing
Company (also owners of
Columbia
Records), rescued the company in April 1927, and as a result,
the network was renamed "Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting
System." Columbia Phonographic went on the air on September 18,
1927, from flagship station WOR in Newark, New Jersey, and 15
affiliates.
Unable to sell enough air time to advertisers, on September 25,
1927, Columbia sold the network for $500,000 to
William S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar
manufacturer. With Columbia Phonographic's removal, Paley
streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System".
Paley
believed in the power of radio advertising; his family's company
had seen their "La Palina" cigar become a best-seller after young
William convinced his elders to advertise it on Philadelphia
station WCAU
, one of
Columbia's affiliates.
In November 1927, Columbia paid $410,000 to
A.H. Grebe's
Atlantic Broadcasting Company
for a small Brooklyn station, WABC, which would become the
network's
flagship station. WABC was
quickly upgraded, and the signal relocated to a stronger frequency,
860
kHz.
(In 1946, WABC was re-named WCBS
; the station
moved to a new frequency, 880 kHz, in the FCC's 1941
reassignment of stations.) It was where much of CBS's programming
originated; other owned-and-operated stations were KNX
Los Angeles
, KCBS
San Francisco
(originally KQW), WBBM
Chicago,
WJSV Washington, D.C.
(later WTOP, which moved to the FM dial in
2005; the AM facility today is WFED
, also a
secondary CBS affiliate), KMOX St.
Louis
, and WCCO
Minneapolis
. These remain the core affiliates of the
CBS Radio Network today, with
WCBS still the
flagship, and all except WTOP and WFED (both
Bonneville Broadcasting properties)
owned by CBS Radio.
Later in 1928, another investor,
Paramount Pictures (who ironically would
eventually be co-owned with CBS, see below), bought Columbia stock,
and for a time it was thought the network would be renamed
"Paramount Radio". Any chance of further Paramount involvement
ended with the
1929 stock
market crash; the near-bankrupt studio sold its shares back to
CBS in 1932.
As the third national network, CBS soon had more affiliates than
either of
NBC's two, in part because of a more
generous rate of payment to affiliates. NBC's owner and founder of
RCA, David Sarnoff, believed in technology, so NBC's affiliates had
the latest RCA equipment, and were often the best-established
stations, or were on "
clear
channel" frequencies. Paley believed in the power of
programming, and CBS quickly established itself as the home of many
popular musical and comedy stars, among them
Bing Crosby,
Al Jolson,
George Burns &
Gracie Allen, and
Kate
Smith.
In 1938, NBC and CBS each opened studios in
Hollywood to attract movieland's top talent to their networks – NBC
at Radio City on Sunset and Vine, CBS two blocks away at Columbia
Square
.
In the hard times of the early 1930s, CBS radio broadened its
offerings; having refused an
AP
franchise for news, Paley launched an independent news division,
shaped in its first years by Paley's vice-president, former
The New York Times man
Ed Klauber, and news director Paul White. Another early hire, in
1935, was
Edward R. Murrow, brought in as "Director of Talks."
It was Murrow's reports, particularly during the dark days of the
London Blitz, which contributed to CBS
News' image for on-the-spot coverage. As European news chief and
later head of the news division, Murrow assembled a team of
reporters and editors that propelled CBS News to the forefront of
the industry.
On October 30, 1938, CBS gained a taste of infamy when
Orson Welles and the
Mercury Theatre broadcast an adaptation of
H. G.
Wells'
The War of the Worlds.
Its unique
format, a contemporary version of the story in the form of
faux news broadcasts, had many CBS listeners panicked into
believing invaders from Mars were actually
devastating Grover's Mill, New Jersey
, despite three disclaimers during the broadcast
that it was a work of fiction. CBS would later revive the
format for television in the 1990s for
Without Warning, which told
the story of asteroids crashing to Earth, but the television format
allowed for disclaimers to air at every commercial break, avoiding
a replay of what happened in 1938.
Also in 1938, CBS bought
American Record Corporation, the
parent of its former investor
Columbia
Records.
Before the onset of
World War II, CBS
recruited
Edmund A.
Chester from his position
as Bureau Chief for Latin America at
Associated Press to serve as Director of
Latin American Relations and Director of Short Wave Broadcasts for
the CBS radio network (1940).
In this capacity, Mr. Chester coordinated the
development of the Network of
the Americas (La Cadena de las Americas) with the Department of
State
, the Office for Inter-American
Affairs (as chaired by Nelson
Rockefeller) and Voice of
America. This network provided vital news and cultural
programming throughout South America and Central America during the
crucial World War II era and fostered diplomatic relations between
the United States of America and the less developed nations of the
continent. It featured such popular radio broadcasts as
Viva América [6388] which showcased leading musical talent
from both North and South Americaaccompanied by the
CBS Pan American Orchestra under
the musical direction of
Alfredo
Antonini. The post war era also marked the beginning of CBS's
dominance in the field of radio as well
As long as radio was the dominant advertising medium, CBS dominated
broadcasting. All through the 1950s and 1960s, CBS programs were
often the highest-rated. A much-publicized "talent raid" on NBC in
the mid-1940s brought
Jack Benny,
Edgar Bergen and
Amos 'n' Andy into the CBS fold. Paley also
was an innovator in creating original programming; since
broadcasting's earliest days, time had been sold to advertising
agencies in half- or full-hour blocks. The ad agencies, not the
networks, would then create the program to fill the time, thus it
was " 'The Johnson's Wax Program', with
Fibber McGee and Molly", or " 'The
Pepsodent Show', with
Bob Hope." At Paley's urging, beginning in the
mid-1940s, CBS began creating its own programs; among the
long-running shows that came from this project were
You Are
There (born as
CBS Was There),
My Favorite Husband (starring
Lucille Ball; the show proved a kind of
blueprint for her big CBS television hit
I Love Lucy),
Our Miss Brooks (whose star,
Eve Arden, was encouraged personally by Paley to
try out for the title role),
Gunsmoke and
The Adventures of Ozzie and
Harriet. In time this idea was carried further, selling ad
time by the minute, so ad agencies no longer had complete control
over what went out over "Paley's air".
CBS moved at a deliberate pace into
television; as late as 1950 it owned only one
station;
radio continued to be the backbone of
the company. Gradually, as the television network took shape, big
radio stars began to drift to television. The radio
soap opera The
Guiding Light moved to television in 1952 and aired until
September 18, 2009; Burns & Allen made the move in 1950;
Lucille Ball a year later;
Our Miss Brooks in 1952 (though
it continued simultaneously on radio for its full television life).
The high-rated
Jack Benny radio show
ended in 1955, and Edgar Bergen's Sunday-night show went off the
air in 1957. When CBS announced in 1956 that its radio operations
had lost money, while the television network had made money, it was
clear where the future lie. When the soap opera
Ma Perkins went off the air November 25, 1960
only eight, relatively minor series remained. Prime-time radio
ended on September 30, 1962, when the legendary
Suspense aired for the final
time.
After the retirement of talk-show pioneer
Arthur Godfrey in 1972, CBS radio programming
consisted of hourly news broadcast and an extensive schedule of
news features, known in the 1970s as Dimension, and commentaries,
including the well received Spectrum series of commentaries which
evolved into the Point/Counterpoint feature on the television
network's 60 Minutes and First Line Report, a well-regarded news
and analysis feature delivered by CBS correspondents and offered to
the CBS radio stations. The network also continued to offer
traditional radio programming through its nightly "CBS Mystery
Theater", the lone holdout of old-style programming. The
CBS Radio Network continues to this day,
but offers primarily its well-regarded newscasts, including its
centerpiece World News Roundup in the morning and evening and
news-related features like "The Osgood File" and "
Harry Smith Reporting" as well as
other talk properties.
The television years: expansion and growth
CBS's first television broadcasts were experimental, often only for
one hour a day, and reaching a limited area in and around New York
City (over station W2XAB channel 2, later called WCBW and finally
WCBS-TV). To catch up with rival RCA, CBS bought Hytron
Laboratories in 1939, and immediately moved into set production and
color broadcasting. Though there were many competing patents and
systems, RCA dictated the content of the
FCC's technical standards,
and grabbed the spotlight from CBS,
DuMont and others by introducing
television to the general public at the
1939 New York World's Fair.
The FCC
began licensing commercial television stations on July 1, 1941; the
first license went to RCA and NBC's WNBT (now WNBC
); the second
license, issued that same day, was to WCBW, (now WCBS
).
CBS-Hytron offered a practical color system in 1941, but it was not
compatible with the black-and-white standards set down by RCA. In
time, and after considerable dithering, the FCC rejected CBS's
technology in favor of by RCA.
During the
World War II years,
commercial television broadcasting was reduced dramatically. Toward
the end of the war, commercial television began to ramp up again,
with an increased level of programming evident in the 1945–1947
period on the three New York television stations which operated in
those years (the local stations of NBC, CBS and DuMont) But as RCA
and DuMont raced to establish networks and offer upgraded
programming, CBS lagged, advocating an industry-wide shift and
re-start to UHF for their incompatible (with black and white) color
system. Only in 1950, when NBC was dominant in television and black
and white transmission was widespread, did CBS begin to buy or
build their own stations (outside of New York) in Los Angeles,
Chicago and other major cities. Up to that point, CBS programming
was seen on such stations as KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, which
CBS—as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in Los
Angeles—quickly purchased a 50% interest in. CBS then sold their
interest in KTTV and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station
KTSL (Channel 2) in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after CBS's existing
Los Angeles radio property, KNX), later to become KCBS. The "talent
raid" on NBC of the mid-forties had brought over established radio
stars; they now became stars of CBS television as well. One
reluctant CBS star refused to bring her radio show, "My Favorite
Husband", to television unless the network would re-cast the show
with her real-life husband in the lead. Paley and network president
Frank Stanton had so little faith in
the future of
Lucille Ball's series,
re-dubbed
I Love Lucy, that
they granted her wish and allowed the husband,
Desi Arnaz, to take financial control of the
production. This was the making of the Ball-Arnaz
Desilu empire, and became the template
for series production to this day.
In the late 1940s, CBS offered the first live television coverage
of the proceedings of the
United Nations General
Assembly(1949). This journalist tour-de-force was under the
direction of
Edmund A.
Chester, who was
appointed to the post of Director for News, Special Events and
Sports at CBS Television in 1948.
As television came to the forefront of American entertainment and
information, CBS dominated television as it once had radio. In
1953, the CBS television network would make its first profit, and
would maintain dominance on television between the years 1955 and
1976 as well By the late 1950s, the network often controlled seven
or eight of the slots on the "top ten" ratings list with
well-respected shows like
Route
66. This success would continue for many years, with CBS
bumped from first place only by the rise of
ABC in the mid-1970s. Perhaps
because of its status as the top-rated network, during the late
1960s and early 1970s CBS felt freer to gamble with controversial
properties like the
Smothers
Brothers Comedy Hour and
All in the Family and its many
spinoffs during this period.
One of CBS's most critically acclaimed and popular shows at that
time was
M*A*S*H, a
dramedy based on the hit
Robert Altman film. It ran from 1972-1983, and
was set, like the
film, during the
Korean War in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. The final episode
aired on February 28, 1983 and was 2½ hours long. It was viewed by
nearly 106 million Americans (77% of viewership that night)
which established it as the most watched episode in United States
television history, a record which still stands.
CBS "Eye" Logo in 1965, shown before shows presented in color
Paley was a buyer of art, and a backer of New York's
Museum of
Modern Art
. CBS offices were filled with original works. Paley
shared this interest with Frank Stanton (1908-2006), CBS President
(1946–1971), who carried this belief over into the design elements
surrounding the network.
When CBS bought Los Angeles station KNX in
1936 for a west-coast production headquarters, Frank Stanton
demanded that architect William
Lescaze be hired to create Columbia Square, a distinctive, modern broadcasting center on
Sunset Boulevard. Similarly, when CBS commissioned
Eero Saarinen to design a new corporate center
in New York in the 1960s, Stanton supervised every aspect of the
project, even dictating what could be displayed in employee offices
and on desktops. This belief in art, graphics and branding carried
over to such things as the CBS Television's logo, the unblinking
eye logo (designed by
William Golden
and introduced in 1951). An example of CBS's graphic-design
particularity: on all official CBS letterhead, a tiny dot (at most
a
point in diameter) was
pre-printed to indicate to a secretary where the typewriter
carriage should be positioned for the salutation of a letter.
Golden's successor as Creative Director,
Lou Dorfsman, worked with Dr. Stanton to
develop the CBS Inc. corporate look that survives to this
day.
Color telecasts
Although CBS-TV was the first with a working color television
system, they lost out to
RCA in 1953, due in
part because the CBS color system was incompatible with existing
black-and-white sets. Although
RCA (parent
company of
NBC) made its color system available
to CBS, the network was not interested in boosting
RCA's profits and only televised a few specials in color
for the rest of the decade. The specials included the
Ford Star Jubilee programs (which
included the first telecast ever of MGM's 1939 film classic
The Wizard of
Oz). Other specials were also shown - the 1957 telecast of
Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Cinderella,
Cole Porter's musical version of
Aladdin, and
Playhouse
90's only color broadcast, the 1958 production of
The Nutcracker, featuring
choreography by
George Balanchine.
This telecast was based on the famous production staged annually in
New York by the New York City Ballet.
Beginning in 1959,
The Wizard of Oz, now telecast as a
family special in its own right (after the cancellation of
Ford
Star Jubilee), became an annual tradition on color TV.However,
it was the success of
NBC's 1955 telecast of the
Mary Martin Peter Pan, the
most-watched television special of its time, that inspired CBS to
telecast
The Wizard of Oz,
Cinderella and
Aladdin.
By the early 1960s, CBS-TV was void of transmitting anything in
color—save for a few specials such as
The Wizard of Oz,
and only if the sponsor would pay for it.
Red Skelton was the first CBS host to telecast
his weekly programs in color, using a converted movie studio, in
the early 1960s; he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the network to
use his facility for other programs, then was forced to sell it.
Color was being pushed hard by rival
NBC.
Even
ABC
had several color programs in 1962. One
famous CBS-TV special made during this era was the
Charles Collingwood-hosted tour of the
White
House with First Lady Jackie Kennedy. It was, however, shown in
black-and-white. Beginning in 1963, at least one CBS show,
The Lucy Show, began filming
in color at its star and producer
Lucille
Ball's insistence (she realized the episodes would eventually
command more money when they were sold into syndication), but even
it was broadcast in black and white through the end of the 1964-65
season.) This would all change by the mid-1960s, when market
pressure forced CBS-TV to add color programs to the regular
schedule for the 1965–66 season and completed the changeover during
the 1966-67 season. By the fall of 1967, nearly all of CBS's TV
programs were being shown in color, as they were on
NBC and
American Broadcasting Company
(ABC). A notable exception was
Twentieth Century, which
consisted mostly of newsreel archival footage. However, even this
program used at least some color footage by the late 1960s.
In 1965, months before its conversion to full-time color
programming, CBS telecast a new color version of Rodgers and
Hammerstein's
Cinderella. This version, starring
Lesley Ann Warren and
Stuart Damon in the roles formerly played by
Julie Andrews and
Jon Cypher, was shot on videotape rather than
being telecast live , and would become an annual tradition for the
next nine years.
In 1967, NBC temporarily acquired
The Wizard of Oz from
CBS, due to CBS's reluctance to meet
MGM's increased price for the rights to
show their film. However, the network quickly realized their
colossal mistake in allowing what was then one of its prime ratings
winners to be acquired by another network, and by 1976,
Oz
was back on CBS, where it remained until 1998.
1971–1986: The "Rural Purge" and (temporary) Fall From the
Top
By the end of the 1960s, CBS was broadcasting virtually all of its
schedule in color, but it was felt that many of its shows
(including
The Beverly
Hillbillies,
Mayberry
R.F.D.,
Petticoat
Junction,
Hee Haw and
Green Acres) were appealing
more to older and more rural audiences and less to young, urban and
more affluent audiences that advertisers sought to target.
Fred Silverman (who would later head ABC,
then NBC) made the decision to cancel most of those shows by
mid-1971 in what became colloquially referred to as the "
Rural purge," with
Green Acres star
Pat Buttram remarking that the network
cancelled "anything with a tree in it."
While the "rural" shows got the axe, new hits, like
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
All in the Family,
M*A*S*H,
The Bob Newhart Show,
The Waltons,
Cannon,
Barnaby Jones,
Kojak and
The Sonny & Cher Comedy
Hour took their place and kept CBS at the top of the
ratings through the early 70's. The majority of these hits were
over-seen by then East Coast vice president
Alan Wagner. Also,
60
Minutes moved to 7 p.m. ET on Sundays in 1976 and became
an unexpected hit.
Fred Silverman also first used his talent for spinning off shows at
CBS, with
Rhoda and
Phyllis from
The Mary Tyler
Moore Show,
Maude
and
The Jeffersons from
All in the Family and
Good
Times from
Maude (ironically, he would later have
to "save"
Happy Days from
Good Times, on assuming the presidency of ABC in
1975.)
After Silverman's departure, CBS dropped behind ABC in the 1976-77
season, but still rated strongly, based on its earlier hits and new
long-running hits
One Day at a
Time,
Alice,
WKRP in Cincinnati,
The Dukes of Hazzard
(somewhat harkening back to the "rural" days) and, the biggest hit
of the early 80s,
Dallas.
By 1982 ABC had run out of steam and NBC was in dire straits with
many failed programming efforts (which ironically were greenlighted
by Silverman, who was NBC's president from 1978 to 1981), so CBS
was again ruling the airwaves with
Dallas (and its
spin-off
Knots Landing,)
Falcon Crest,
Magnum, P.I.,
Simon & Simon and
60
Minutes, along with many of its long-running hits from the
mid-70's. But, despite a few new hits (
Kate & Allie,
Newhart,
Crazy like a Fox,
Scarecrow and Mrs.
King,
Murder, She
Wrote) the resurgence was short-lived.
1986–2002: Tiffany Network in distress
In 1984,
The Cosby Show and
Miami Vice debuted on NBC and
grabbed high ratings immediately, bringing that network back to
first place by the 1985-1986 season along with other huge hits
Family Ties,
The Golden Girls,
LA Law, and
227. ABC
had in turn also rebounded with hits like
Dynasty,
Who's the Boss?,
Hotel, and
Growing Pains. By the 1988-1989 season,
CBS had fallen to third place behind both ABC and NBC, and had some
major rebuilding to do.
Ironically, some of the groundwork was already laid, with hits
Murder, She Wrote,
Kate & Allie and
Newhart still on the schedule from the early 1980s, and
future hits
Designing Women
and
Murphy Brown having
recently debuted. Plus, CBS was still getting decent ratings from
60 Minutes,
Dallas and
Knots Landing (
However the ratings for
Dallas and
Knots Landing
were a far cry from their glory years from earlier in the
decade.)
Under network president Jeff Sagansky, the network was able to get
strong ratings from new shows
Diagnosis Murder,
Touched by an Angel,
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,
Walker, Texas Ranger,
and a resurgent
Jake and the
Fatman during this period, and CBS was able to reclaim the
first place crown briefly, in the 1992-1993 season, though its
demographics skewed older than ABC, NBC or even Fox, with its
relatively limited presence at that time.
Despite some limited success CBS had with the
1994 Winter Olympics, Fox's acquisition
on the
NFL resulted in
affiliation changes
(along with an ill-fated effort to court younger viewers) and CBS
dropped to second-place in the ratings in the 1994-1995 season
behind a resurgent NBC (with
Seinfeld,
Friends,
and other "
Must See TV" shows,) and in
1999 behind a briefly-resurgent ABC (fueled by
Who Wants to be a
Millionaire.)
Still, CBS was able to produce some hits, such as
Cosby,
The
Nanny, and
Everybody Loves Raymond.
2002–present
Another turning point for CBS came in the summer of 2000 when it
debuted the summer reality show
Survivor, which became a
surprise summer hit for the network. In January 2001, CBS debuted
the second season of the show after its airing of the Super Bowl
and scheduled it Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET, and moved the police
procedural
CSI (which had debuted
that fall Fridays at 9 p.m. ET) to Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and was
both able to chip away at and eventually beat NBC's Thursday night
lineup, and attract younger viewers to the network.
CBS has had additional successes with police procedurals
Cold Case,
Without a Trace,
Criminal Minds,
NCIS, and
The Mentalist, along with
CSI
spinoffs
CSI: Miami and
CSI: NY, and sitcoms
Everybody Loves Raymond,
The King of Queens,
Two and a Half Men,
How I Met Your
Mother,
The Big Bang
Theory and
The New Adventures of Old
Christine.
During the 2007-2008 season, Fox ranked as the top-rated network,
primarily due to its reliance on
American Idol. However, according to
Nielsen, CBS ended up as the
top-rated network for the 2008-2009 season.
The conglomerate
During the 1960s, CBS began an effort to diversify, and looked for
suitable investments. In 1965, it acquired
electric guitar maker
Fender from
Leo Fender, who agreed to sell his company due to
health problems. The purchase also included that of
Rhodes electric pianos, which had already been
acquired by Fender. This and other acquisitions led to a
restructuring of the corporation into various operating groups and
divisions.
In other diversification attempts, CBS would buy (and later sell)
sports teams (especially the
New York
Yankees baseball club), book and magazine publishers (
Fawcett Publications including
Woman's Day, and
Holt,
Rinehart and Winston), map-makers, toy manufacturers (Gabriel
Toys, Child Guidance, Wonder Products), and other properties.
As William Paley aged, he tried to find the one person who could
follow in his footsteps. Over the years any number of accomplished,
successful businessmen were recruited, loudly praised to the press,
only later to be summarily dismissed. By the mid-1980s, the
investor
Laurence Tisch had begun to
acquire substantial holdings in CBS. Eventually he gained Paley's
confidence, and then his blessing, taking control of CBS in 1986.
But Tisch had no dreams of quality or of "Tiffany" networks; he
expected a return on his investment.
When CBS faltered, under-performing units were given the axe. Among
the first properties to go, and among the most prestigious, was the
Columbia Records group, which had
been part of the company since 1938.
Tisch also shut down
in 1986 the CBS Technology Center
in Stamford
, CT, which had started in New York City in the
1930s as CBS Laboratories and
evolved to be the company's technology R&D unit.
Columbia Records
Columbia Records was a record label owned by CBS since 1938.
CBS sold
Columbia Records to the Japanese conglomerate Sony
in 1988 initiating the Japanese buying spree of US companies
(MCA, Pebble Beach Co., Rockefeller
Center
, Empire State Building
, et al.) that continued into the 1990s and the
record label company was re-christened Sony Music Entertainment in 1991,
as Sony had a short term license on the CBS name. Eventually
the entity known as Sony Music Entertainment would become
Sony BMG when Sony and
BMG merged in 2004.
Sony purchased from
EMI its rights to the
Columbia Records name outside the US, Canada and Japan. Sony BMG
now uses Columbia Records as a label name in all countries except
Japan, where Sony Records remains their flagship label.
CBS Corporation revived
CBS Records in 2006.
CBS Musical Instruments division
Forming
the CBS Musical Instruments division, the company also acquired
Steinway
pianos, Gemeinhardt
flutes, Lyon & Healy harps,
Rodgers
(institutional) organs, Gulbransen home organs, Electro-Music Inc.
(
Leslie speakers), and
Rogers Drums. The last musical purchase was the
1981 acquisition of the assets of then-bankrupt
ARP Instruments, developer of
electronic
synthesizers.
Between 1965 and 1985 the quality of Fender guitars and amplifiers
declined significantly. Encouraged by outraged Fender fans, CBS
Musical Instruments division executives executed a leveraged buyout
in 1985 and created
FMIC, the Fender
Musical Instrument Corporation. At the same time, CBS divested
itself of Rodgers, along with Steinway and Gemeinhardt, all of
which were purchased by Steinway Musical Properties. The other
musical instruments properties were also liquidated.
Film production
CBS made a brief, unsuccessful move into film production in the
late 1960s, creating
Cinema Center
Films. This profit-free unit was shut down in 1972; today the
distribution rights to the Cinema Center library rest with
Paramount Pictures for home video (via
CBS Home Entertainment) and
theatrical release, and with CBS Paramount Television for TV
distribution (most other ancillary rights remain with CBS). It
released such films as
The
Reivers (1969), starring
Steve
McQueen, and the musical
Scrooge (1970), starring
Albert Finney.
Yet ten years later, in 1982, CBS was talked into another try at
Hollywood, in a joint venture with
Columbia Pictures and
HBO called
TriStar
Pictures. Their first release, in 1984, was
The Natural. Their second movie was a flop
remake of the 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture
Where the Boys Are. CBS dropped out of
the venture in 1984.
In 2007, CBS Corp. announced its desire to get back into the
feature film business slowly launching CBS Films and hiring key
executives in the Spring of 2008 to startup the new venture. The
name CBS Films was actually used once before in 1953 when the name
was briefly used for CBS's distributor of off-network and first-run
syndicated programming to local TV stations in the United States
and abroad.
Home video
CBS entered into the home video market, when joined with
MGM to form
MGM/CBS Home Video in 1978, but the joint
venture was broken by 1982. CBS joined another studio:
20th Century Fox, to form
CBS/Fox Video. CBS's duty was to release some
of the movies by
TriStar Pictures
under the
CBS/Fox Video label.
Gabriel Toys
CBS entered the video game market briefly, through its acquisition
of Gabriel Toys (renamed CBS Toys), publishing several arcade
adaptations and original titles under the name
CBS
Electronics for the
Atari 2600
and other consoles and computers and also a one of the first
karaoke recording/players.). CBS Electronics also distributed all
Coleco-related video game products in Canada,
including the
ColecoVision. CBS later
sold Gabriel Toys to
View-Master, which
eventually ended up as part of
Mattel.
Venture to the UK
CBS
Officially premiered in the United Kingdom
and Republic of Ireland
in November 2009, it replaced former Zone Reality channels.
Zone channels were replaced by the following channels by the CBS
network:
Most programing remained the same as before the switch over.
New owners
By the early 1990s, profits had fallen as a result of competition
from cable companies, video rentals, and the high cost of
programming. About 20 former CBS affiliates switched to the rapidly
rising
Fox Television
Network in the mid 1990s, with many television markets across
the country (e.g.
KDFX
in Palm
Springs, California
and KECY
in Yuma, Arizona
reportedly the first to do so in August 1994) lost
their CBS affiliate for awhile. CBS ratings were acceptable,
but the network struggled with an image of stodginess. Laurence
Tisch lost interest and sought a new buyer.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation
In 1995,
Westinghouse
Electric Corporation acquired CBS for $5.4 billion. As one of
the major broadcasting group owners of commercial radio and
television stations (as
Group
W) since 1920, Westinghouse sought to transition from a station
operator into a major media company with its purchase of CBS. This
was followed in 1997 with the $4.9-billion purchase of
Infinity Broadcasting
Corporation, owner of more than 150 radio stations. Also that
year, Westinghouse began the CBS Cable division by acquiring two
existing cable channels (
Gaylord's The Nashville Network and
Country Music Television) and
starting a new one (CBS Eye on People, which was later sold to
Discovery
Communications).
Following the Infinity purchase, operation and sales
responsibilities for the
CBS Radio
Network was handed to Infinity, which turned management over to
Westwood One, a company Infinity
managed. WWO is a major radio program syndicator that had
previously purchased the Mutual Broadcasting System, NBC's radio
networks and the rights to use the "NBC Radio Networks" name. For a
time, CBS Radio, NBC Radio Networks and CNN's radio news services
were all under the WWO umbrella.
As of 2008,
Westwood One continues to
distribute CBS radio programming, but as a self-managed company
that put itself up for sale and found a buyer for a significant
amount of its stock.
CBS also owned
CBS
Telenoticias, a Spanish-language news network.
In that
same year of 1997, Westinghouse changed its name to CBS Corporation, and corporate headquarters
were moved from Pittsburgh
to New York. And to underline the change in
emphasis, all non-entertainment assets were put up for sale.
Another 90 radio stations were added to Infinity's portfolio in
1998 with the acquisition of American Radio Systems Corporation for
$2.6 billion.
In 1999, CBS paid $2.5 billion to acquire
King World Productions, a television
syndication company whose programs include
The Oprah Winfrey Show,
Jeopardy! and
Wheel of Fortune. By
the end of 1999, all pre-CBS elements of Westinghouse's industrial
past (beyond retaining rights to the name for
brand licensing purposes) were gone.
Viacom
By the 1990s, CBS had become a broadcasting giant, but in 1999
entertainment
conglomerate
Viacom , a company
created years earlier to syndicate old CBS series, announced it was
taking over CBS in a deal valued at $37 billion. Following
completion of this effort in 2000,
Viacom was
ranked as the second-largest entertainment company in the
world.
CBS Corporation and CBS Studios
Having assembled all the elements of a communications empire,
Viacom found that the promised synergy was not there, and at the
end of 2005 it split itself in two. CBS became the center of a new
company,
CBS Corporation, which
included the broadcasting elements, Paramount Television's
production operations (renamed
CBS Television Studios),
UPN (which later merged with
Time
Warner's
The WB into
The CW), Viacom Outdoor
advertising (renamed
CBS Outdoor),
Showtime,
Simon & Schuster, and
Paramount Parks, which the company
sold in May 2006.
The
second company, keeping the Viacom name, kept
Paramount Pictures (a former shareholder in CBS, see above, also
owned a stake in the DuMont
Television Network, whose Pittsburgh O&O is now CBS-owned
KDKA-TV
), assorted MTV Networks, BET, and, until May 2007,
Famous Music, which was sold to
Sony/ATV Music
Publishing.
As a result of the aforementioned Viacom/CBS corporate split, as
well as other acquisitions over recent years, CBS (under the
moniker CBS Studios) owns a massive television library spanning
over six decades; these include not only CBS in-house productions
and network programs, but also programs aired originally on
competing networks. Shows in this library include
I Love Lucy,
The Twilight Zone,
The Honeymooners,
Hawaii Five-O,
Gunsmoke,
The Fugitive,
Little House on the
Prairie (US TV rights only),
Star Trek,
The Brady Bunch,
Cheers,
The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles,
Evening
Shade, and
CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation, among others.
Both CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are still owned by Sumner
Redstone's company, National Amusements. As such,
Paramount Home
Entertainment continues to handle DVD distribution for the CBS
library.
Coverage and availability
ACNielsen estimated in 2003 that CBS can
be seen in 96.98% of all American households, reaching 103,421,270
homes in the United States. CBS has 204 VHF and UHF affiliated
stations in the U.S. and U.S. possessions.
CBS.com
CBS.com is a website that has games, online sports
and more.
Logos and slogans
CBS's original block text oval
spotlight logo
CBS current eye logo, popularly known
as the "CBS Eye" or "The Eyemark", from 1951 through the
present.
CBS unveiled its
Eye Device
logo on October 17, 1951. Before that, from the 1940s
through 1951, CBS Television used an oval spotlight on the block
letters C-B-S. The Eye device was conceived by
William Golden based on a
Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign as well as a
Shaker
drawing. (While commonly attributed to Golden, there is speculation
that at least some design work on the symbol may have been done by
another CBS staff designer, Georg Olden, one of the first
African-Americans to achieve some notoriety in the postwar graphic
design field.) The Eye device made its broadcasting debut on
October 20, 1951. The following season, as
Golden prepared a new
ident, CBS President
Frank
Stanton insisted on keeping the Eye device and using it as much
as possible.
An example of CBS Television Network's imaging (and the distinction
between the television and radio networks) may be seen in a video
of
The Jack Benny
Program from 1953; the video appears to be converted from
kinescope, and "unscoped" or unedited. One
sees the program as very nearly one would have seen it live on CBS.
Don Wilson is the program
announcer, but also voices a promo for
Private Secretary, which
starred
Ann Sothern and alternated
weekly with
Jack Benny on the CBS
schedule. Benny continued to appear on CBS radio and television at
that time, and Wilson makes a promo announcement at the end of the
broadcast for Benny's radio program on the
CBS Radio Network. The program closes with
the "CBS Television Network" ID slide (the "CBS eye" over a field
of clouds with the words "CBS Television Network" superimposed over
the eye). There is, however, no voiceover accompanying the ID
slide. It is unclear whether it was simply absent from the
recording or never originally broadcast.
The CBS eye is now an American icon. While the symbol's settings
have changed, the Eye device itself has not been redesigned in its
entire history. In the network's new graphic identity created by
Trollbäck + Company in
2006, the eye is being placed in a "trademark" position on show
titles, days of the week and descriptive words, an approach highly
respecting the value of the eye.
The eye logo has frequently been copied
or borrowed by television networks around the world, notable
examples being the Austrian Broadcasting System (ORF) which used to use a red
version of the eye logo, Associated TeleVision in the United
Kingdom and Frecuencia Latina in
Peru
. The logo is alternately known as the
Eyemark, which was also the name of CBS's domestic and
international
syndication
divisions in the mid to late 1990s before the King World
acquisition and Viacom merger.
1980s
Through the years, CBS has developed several notable image
campaigns, and several of the network's most well-known slogans
date from the 1980s. 1981's "Reach for the Stars" used a
space-themed campaign to capitalize on both CBS's stellar
improvement in the ratings and the historic launch of the space
shuttle Columbia. 1982's "Great Moments" juxtaposed scenes from
classic CBS programming such as "I Love Lucy" with scenes from the
network's then-current classics such as "Dallas" and "M*A*S*H".
From 1983 through 1986, CBS (by now firmly atop the ratings)
featured a campaign based on the slogan "We've Got the Touch".
Vocals for the campaign's jingle were contributed by Richie Havens
(1983–1984 and 1984–1985), Aaron Neville (1984–1985) and Kenny
Rogers (1985–1986). The 1986–1987 programming season ushered in the
"Share the Spirit of CBS" campaign, the network's first to use
full-out computer graphics and DVE effects. Unlike most network
campaign promos, the full length version of Share the Spirit not
only showed a brief clip preview of each new fall series, but also
utilized the CGI effects to map out the entire fall schedule by
night. The success of that campaign led to the 1987–1988 "CBSpirit"
campaign. Most CBSpirit promos utilized a procession of show clips
once again. However, the new graphic motif was a swirling (or
"swishing") blue line, that was used to represent "the spirit". The
full length promo, like the previous year, had a special portion
that identified new fall shows, but the mapped-out fall schedule
shot was abandoned.
For the 1988–1989 season, CBS unveiled its new image campaign,
officially known as "Television You Can Feel" but more commonly
identified as "You Can Feel It On CBS". The goal was to convey a
more sensual, new-age image through distinguished, advanced-looking
computer graphics and soothing music, backgrounding images and
clips of emotionally-powerful scenes and characters. However, it
was this season in which CBS began its ratings free fall, the
deepest in the network's history. CBS ended the decade with "Get
Ready for CBS". The 1989–90 version was a very ambitious campaign
that attempted to elevate CBS out of last place (among the major
networks); the motif was network stars interacting with each other
in a remote studio set, getting ready for photo and TV shoots, as
well as for the new season on CBS. The high-energy promo song and
the campaign's practices saw many variations across the country as
every CBS affiliate participated in it, as per a network mandate.
Also, for the first time in history, CBS became the first broadcast
network to team with a national retailer to encourage viewership,
with the CBS/Kmart Get Ready Giveaway.
1990s
For the 1990–91 season, the campaign featured a new jingle—
The Temptations offered an altered version
of their hit "Get Ready". The early 1990s featured
less-than-memorable campaigns, with simplified taglines such as
"This is CBS" (1992) and "You're On CBS" (1995). Eventually, the
advertising department gained momentum again late in the decade
with
Welcome Home to CBS (1996–1997), simplified to
Welcome Home (1997–1999) and succeeded by the spin-off
campaign
The Address is CBS (1999–2000).
2000s
Throughout the 2000s, CBS's ratings resurgence was backed by their
"It's All Here" campaign, and their strategy led, in 2005, to the
proclamation that they were "America's Most Watched Network". Their
most-recent campaign, beginning in 2006, proclaims "We Are CBS"
with the voice of
Don LaFontaine. As
of 2009, the network has shifted to a campaign entitled "Only CBS"
in which the network proclaims several unique qualities it
has.
Promos
Especially during the 1960s, the three major networks, NBC, CBS and
ABC, would show elaborate promos during the summer months of their
upcoming fall schedule of that year. In 1961, CBS took the unusual
step of airing a program entitled
CBS Fall Preview Special:
Seven Wonderful Nights, using, not the usual television
voiceovers, but stars of several CBS shows to promote the upcoming
shows, stars such as Ed Sullivan (
The Ed Sullivan Show),
Rod Serling (
The Twilight
Zone), and
Raymond Burr and
Barbara Hale (
Perry Mason).
The stars would appear and show previews of the entire lineup for
one specific day of the week.
Programming
CBS presently operates on an 87½-hour regular network programming
schedule. It provides 22 hours of
prime
time programming to affiliated stations: 8–11 p.m. Monday to
Saturday (all times ET/PT) and 7–11 p.m. on Sundays. Programming
will also be provided 11 a.m.–4 p.m. weekdays (game shows
The Price Is
Right and
Let's Make a
Deal and soaps
The Young and the Restless,
The Bold and the
Beautiful and
As the
World Turns); 7–9 a.m. weekdays and Saturdays
(
The Early Show);
CBS News Sunday
Morning, nightly editions of the
CBS Evening
News, the Sunday political talk show
Face the Nation, a 2½-hour early
morning news program
Up to the
Minute and
CBS Morning
News; the late night talk shows
Late Show with David
Letterman and
The Late Late Show with
Craig Ferguson; and a three-hour Saturday morning
live-action/animation block under a new name
Cookie Jar TV.
In addition, sports programming routinely appears on the weekends,
although with a somewhat unpredictable schedule (mostly between
noon and 7:00 p.m. ET).
Prime time
Returning comedies are in
red; new comedies are in
pink; returning
dramas are in
green;
new dramas are in
blue; returning reality shows are in
yellow; new reality
shows are in
gold;
returning game shows are in
orange; new game shows are in
beige; news
programming is in
brown; sports programming is in
purple.
All times are
Eastern and
Pacific (subtract one hour for
Central and
Mountain time).
Daytime
CBS's daytime schedule is the home of the popular long-running game
show
The Price
Is Right.
The Price is Right, which began
production in 1972, is notable as the longest continuously running
daytime game show on network television.
Currently,
CBS Daytime airs three
daytime
soap operas each weekday:
The Young and the
Restless (1973– ),
The Bold and the Beautiful
(1987– ) and
As the World
Turns (1956– ).
The network is also home to a new version of the classic game show
Let's Make a Deal, hosted
by singer/comedian
Wayne Brady.
While most CBS stations air the daytime shows in this order, some
do not.
Notable daytime soaps that once aired on CBS include
Guiding Light (1952–2009), which began on
radio in 1937,
Love of Life
(1951–1980),
Search for
Tomorrow (1951–1982), which later moved to NBC,
The Secret Storm
(1954–1974),
The Edge of
Night (1956–1975), which later moved to ABC, and
Capitol
(1982–1987).
Notable daytime game shows that once aired on CBS include
Match Game (1973–1979),
Tattletales (1974–1978 and
1982–1984),
The $25,000
Pyramid (1982–1988),
Press
Your Luck (1983–1986),
Card
Sharks (1986–1989), and
Family
Feud (1988–1993). CBS games that also aired in prime time
include
Beat the Clock
(1950–1958 and 1979–1980),
To Tell
the Truth (1956–1968) and
Password (1961–67, and a 2008
prime time revival). Two long-running primetime-only games were the
panel shows
What's My Line?
(1950–1967) and
I've Got a
Secret (1952–1968, 1976).
Children's programming
CBS broadcast the live action series
Captain Kangaroo on weekday mornings
from 1955 through 1982, and on Saturdays through 1984. From 1971
through 1986, the CBS News department produced one-minute
In the News segments broadcast
between other Saturday morning programs. Otherwise, in regards to
children's programming, CBS has aired mostly animated series for
kids, such as the original version of
Scooby-Doo,
Jim Henson's Muppet Babies,
Garfield and Friends
and
Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles. In 1997, CBS began broadcasting
Wheel 2000, and was broadcasting
it simultaneously with
GSN.
In September 1998, CBS began contracting out to other companies to
provide programming and material for their Saturday morning
schedule. The first of these special blocks was
CBS Kidshow, which featured programming
from Canada's
Nelvana studio. It aired on
CBS Saturday mornings from 1998 to 2000, with shows like
Anatole,
Mythic Warriors, Rescue Heroes, and
Flying Rhino Junior High. Its
tagline was,
"The CBS Kids Show: Get in the Act."
In 2000, CBS's deal with Nelvana ended. They then began a deal with
Nickelodeon (owned by CBS's
former parent company Viacom, which at one time was a subsidiary of
CBS) to air its
Nick Jr.
programming under the banner
Nick
Jr. on CBS. From 2002 to 2004, Nick's non-preschool series
aired on it as well, under the name
Nick on CBS.
In 2006, after the Viacom-CBS split (as described above), CBS
decided to discontinue the Nick Jr. lineup in favor of a lineup of
programs produced by
DIC
Entertainment and later, the
Cookie
Jar Group, as part of a three-year deal which includes
distribution of selected Formula One auto races on tape delay.
KOL Secret Slumber Party on CBS premiered in September of
that year; in the inaugural line-up, two of the programs were new
shows, one aired in syndication in 2005 and three were pre-2006
shows. In mid-2007, KOL withdrew sponsorship from CBS's Saturday
Morning Block and the name was changed to
KEWLopolis on
CBS. Complimenting CBS's 2007 line-up was
Care Bears,
Strawberry Shortcake, and
Sushi Pack. On February 24,
2009, it was announced that CBS renewed its contract with Cookie
Jar for another three seasons, through 2012. On September 19, 2009,
KEWLopolis was re-branded as
Cookie Jar
TV.
Animated primetime holiday specials
CBS was the original broadcast network for the animated primetime
holiday specials based on the comic strip
Peanuts, beginning with
A Charlie Brown Christmas in
1965. Over thirty holiday Peanuts specials (each for a specific
holiday such as
Halloween) were broadcast
on CBS from that time until 2000, when ABC acquired the broadcast
rights. CBS also aired several primetime animated specials based on
the work of
Dr. Seuss (Theodor
Geisel), beginning with
How the Grinch
Stole Christmas in 1966.
Rudolph the
Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced in
stop motion by the
Rankin/Bass studio, has been another annual
holiday staple of CBS since 1972, but that special originated on
NBC in 1964. In 1998, CBS aired the
JumpStart Superheroes Christmas
movie special called
Save Santa Claus!.
All of these animated specials, from 1973 until 1990, began with a
fondly remembered opening animated logo which showed the words "A
CBS Special Presentation" in colorful lettering. The word
"SPECIAL", in multiple colors, slowly zoomed out from the frame in
a spinning counterclockwise motion against a black background, and
rapidly zoomed back into frame at the end; the logo was accompanied
by a jazzy yet majestic up-tempo fanfare (believed to be incidental
music from the CBS crime drama
Hawaii
Five-O) with dramatic horns and percussion (this appeared
at the beginning of all CBS specials of the period (such as the
Miss USA pageants and the annual
Kennedy Center Honors presentation),
not just animated ones).
Classical music specials
CBS was also responsible for telecasting the celebrated series of
Young People's
Concerts conducted by
Leonard
Bernstein. Telecast every few months between 1958 and 1972,
first in black-and-white and then switching to color in 1966, these
programs introduced millions of children to classical music through
the eloquent commentaries by Maestro Bernstein.
They were nominated
for several Emmy Awards, and were among
the first programs ever broadcast from Lincoln
Center for the Performing Arts
.
In December 1977, CBS was the first network to telecast the
Baryshnikov staging of
The
Nutcracker starring the celebrated Russian dancer along with
Gelsey Kirkland - a version of the
famous ballet that would become a television classic, and remains
so today. The production later moved to
PBS.
In April 1986, CBS presented a slightly abbreviated version of
Horowitz in Moscow, a
live piano recital by
Vladimir
Horowitz, arguably the greatest pianist of the twentieth
century. It marked Horowitz's return to Russia after more than
sixty years. The program was shown as an episode of the series
CBS News Sunday
Morning (9:00 A.M. in the U.S. is 4:00 P.M. in Russia). It
was so successful that CBS repeated it a mere two months later by
popular demand, this time on videotape, rather than live. In later
years, the program was shown as a stand-alone special on
PBS, and the current DVD of it omits the
Charles Kuralt commentary, but includes
additional selections not heard on the CBS telecast.
In 1986, CBS telecast
Carnegie Hall: The Grand
Reopening in primetime, in what was now a rare move for a
commercial network station, since most primetime classical music
specials were now relegated to
PBS and
A&E. The program was a concert commemorating the
re-opening of Carnegie Hall after its complete renovation. It
featured, along with luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, popular
music artists such as
Frank
Sinatra.
International broadcasts
CBS programmes are shown outside the US. For instance, CBS News is
shown for a few hours a day on satellite channel
Orbit News in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The CBS Evening News is shown in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New
Zealand and Italy on
Sky News, despite the
fact that Sky is part of
News
Corporation (owners of
Fox News
Channel).
In the UK, CBS will take over 6 of
Chello
Zone's channels. These will be the first channels branded CBS
outside the US. The channels will be called CBS Action, CBS Drama,
and CBS Reality, all three will have a
timeshifted (+1) channel as well.
In Australia,
Network Ten has an output
deal with CBS Paramount giving them rights to carry the programs
Jericho,
Dr. Phil,
Late Show with David
Letterman,
NCIS
and
Numb3rs as well access to
stories from
60 Minutes (the
rights of which have been sold to the
Nine
Network which broadcasts
their own 60
Minutes).
In
Bermuda
, there is a CBS affiliate owned by the state-run
Bermuda Broadcasting Company
using the callsign ZBM.
In Canada, CBS, like all major American TV networks, is carried in
the basic program package of all cable and satellite providers. The
broadcast is shown almost exactly the same in Canada as in the
United States. However, CBS's programming on Canadian cable and
satellite systems are subject to the practice of "
simsubbing", in which a signal of
a Canadian station is placed over CBS's signal, if the programming
at that time is the same. As well, many Canadians live close enough
to a major American city to pick up the over the air broadcast
signal of an American CBS affiliate with an antenna.
In Hong Kong, CBS evening news is aired live in the early morning
and the local networks have an agreement to rebroadcast sections 12
hours later to fill up the local news programs when they have
insufficient content to report.
CBS Evening News is seen in the Philippines via satellite on Q-TV
(a sister network of broadcaster GMA) while The Early show is shown
in that country on the Lifestyle Network. Studio 23 and Maxx,
channels owned by broadcaster ABS-CBN in the Philippines show the
Late Show with David Letterman.
Criticism
In 1982, the network aired the documentary
The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam
Deception, asserting
General William Westmoreland deliberately
misled the public about the
Vietnam War
in order to maintain public support. Westmoreland filed a
120 million dollar libel suit that was ultimately settled in
exchange for an on-air clarification. However, an internal study
found that the documentary had violated CBS News Standards.
In 1995, CBS refused to air a segment of
60 Minutes that
would have featured an interview with a former president of
research and development for Brown & Williamson, the nation's
third largest tobacco company. The controversy raised questions
about the legal roles in decision making and whether journalistic
standards should be compromised despite legal pressures and
threats. The decision nevertheless sent shock waves throughout the
television industry, the journalism community, and the
country.
In 2001,
Bernard Goldberg, who was
a reporter with CBS for 28 years, had his book,
Bias: A CBS
Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, published.
This book heavily criticized the media, and some CBS reporters and
news anchors in particular, such as
Dan
Rather. Goldberg, a libertarian, accused CBS of having a
liberal bias in most of their news.
In 2004, the
FCC
imposed a record $550,000 fine on CBS for its broadcast of a
Super Bowl half-time show
(produced by then sister-unit MTV) in which singer
Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed. It
was the largest fine ever for a violation of federal decency laws.
Following the incident CBS apologized to its viewers and denied
foreknowledge of the event, which was broadcast live on TV. In 2008
a Philadelphia federal court annulled the fine imposed on CBS,
labelling it "arbitrary and capricious".
CBS suffered another embarrassment in September of that year, when
the network aired a controversial episode of
60 Minutes, which questioned
U.S. President George W. Bush's service in the
National Guard.
Following allegations of
forgery, CBS News
admitted that
documents used in the story
had not been properly authenticated. The following January, CBS
fired four people connected to the preparation of the
news-segment.Former network news anchor
Dan
Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS,
contending the story, and his termination, were mishandled.
In 2006, CBS announced it would air only three of its NFL games per
week in high definition. The move created some outrage among fans,
with some accusing the network of being "cheap."
See main
article: NFL on CBS HDTV
coverage
In 2007, retired Army Major Gen.
John
Batiste, consultant to
CBS News,
appeared in a political ad for
VoteVets.org critical of President Bush and the
war in Iraq.Two days later, CBS stated that appearing in the ad
violated Batiste's contract with them and the agreement was
terminated.
Partnership
CBS is partner with
Wetpaint, a
wiki farm company. CBS also has engaged in
"egg-vertising", a campaign in the Fall of 2006 which etched
television advertisements in 35 million eggs across North
America.
See also
References
- According to a New York Times piece on November 9, 1950,
"the first local public demonstrations of color television will be
initiated Tuesday by the Columbia Broadcasting System. Ten color
receivers are being installed on the ground floor of the former
Tiffany building at 401 Fifth Avenue, near Thirty-seventh Street,
where several hundred persons can be accommodated for each
presentation"
- See an illustration of this early logo at
http://www.pharis-video.com/cbs-1949.jpg
- Lasky, Julie, "The Search for Georg Olden". (Steven Heller with
Georgette Ballance, editors) Graphic Design History, New
York: Allworth Press, 2001; pp. 121–122.
- See the video at The Jack Benny Program
-
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/international/cbs-channels-to-launch-in-uk/5006298.article
-
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/news/a180007/cbs-to-launch-new-uk-channels.html|
CBS to launch UK channels
- The 60 Minutes controversy: What lawyers are telling the news
media, by Russomannno, J. & Youm, K, Communications and the
Law, Sept. 1996, Issue 3
Bibliography
- Auletta, Ken. Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost
Their Way. New York: Vintage, 1992.
- Bagdikian, Ben H. The New Media Monopoly. Boston:
Beacon Press, 2000.
- Barnouw, Erik. A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting
in the United States to 1933. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996.
- Barnouw, Erik. The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in
the United States, 1933–1953. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1968.
- Epstein, Edward J. News From Nowhere.
- Goldberg, Bernard. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the
Media Distorts the News. Washington, D.C.: Regenery,
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- Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television,
1920–1961. New York: Viking, 1995.
- Matusow, Barbara. The Evening Stars. New York:
Ballantine Books, 1984.
- Paley, William. As It Happened, a Memoir. Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1979.
- Robinson, Michael J. and Sheehan, Margaret. Over the Wire
and On TV: CBS and the UPI Campaign of 1980. Russell Sage
Foundation, 1980.
- Smith, Sally Bedell. In All His Glory, The Life of William
S. Paley, the Legendary Tycoon and His Brilliant
Circle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
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