CBS Broadcasting, Inc. (CBS; originally the Columbia Broadcasting System) is anAmerican English-languagecommercialbroadcast television andradio network owned byParamount Skydance Corporation through theCBS Entertainment Group. Along withABC andNBC, CBS is one of the traditional"Big Three" American television networks.

CBS was founded as a radio network in 1927 and then expanded to television in the 1940s. Although it primarily remained an independent, publicly traded company (NYSE: CBS) throughout most of the 20th century,Paramount Pictures temporarily held a 49% ownership stake from 1929 to 1932. However, in 1995 theWestinghouse Electric Corporation acquired the company, becomingCBS Corporation (after selling certain assets). In 2000, CBS sold again tothe original incarnation of Viacom (formed as aspin-off of CBS in 1971, which acquired Paramount Pictures in 1994). In 2005, Viacom split itself into two separate companies and re-established CBS Corporation. However,National Amusements controlled both CBS andthe second incarnation of Viacom until 2019, when both companiesagreed to re-merge to become ViacomCBS. In 2022,ViacomCBS changed its name to Paramount Global after Paramount Pictures. In 2025, Paramount Global, National Amusements andSkydance Mediamerged to form Paramount Skydance Corporation.

The origins of CBS date back to January 27, 1927, with the creation of the United Independent Broadcasters network in Chicago by New York Citytalent agentArthur Judson. The fledgling network soon needed additional investors, and the Columbia Phonograph Company, manufacturers ofColumbia Records, rescued it in April 1927. Now the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System, the network went to air under its new name on September 18, 1927, with a presentation by the Howard L. Barlow Orchestra^[1] fromflagship stationWOR in Newark, and fifteen affiliates.^[2]

Operational costs were steep, particularly the payments toAT&T for use of its landlines, and by the end of 1927, Columbia Phonograph wanted out.^[3] In early 1928 Judson sold the network to brothers Isaac and Leon Levy, owners of the network's Philadelphia affiliateWCAU, and their partner Jerome Louchheim. None of the three were interested in assuming day-to-day management of the network, so they installed wealthy 26-year-oldWilliam S. Paley, son of a Philadelphia cigar family and in-law of the Levys, as president. With the record company out of the picture, Paley quickly streamlined the corporate name to "Columbia Broadcasting System".^[3] He believed in the power of radio advertising since his family'sLa Palina cigars had doubled their sales after young William convinced his elders to advertise on radio.^[4] By September 1928, Paley bought out the Louchheim share of CBS and became its majority owner with 51% of the business.^[5]

During Louchheim's brief regime, Columbia paid $410,000 toAlfred H. Grebe'sAtlantic Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for the small Brooklyn stationWABC (no relation to the currentWABC), which would become the network's flagship station. WABC was quickly upgraded, and the signal relocated to 860 kHz.^[6] The physical plant was also relocated toSteinway Hall on West 57th Street inManhattan, where much of CBS's programming would originate. By the turn of 1929, the network had 47 affiliates.^[5]

Paley moved right away to put his network on a firmer financial footing. In the fall of 1928, he entered into talks withAdolph Zukor ofParamount Pictures, who planned to move into radio in response toRCA's forays into motion pictures with the advent of talkies.^[7] The deal came to fruition in September 1929; Paramount acquired 49% of CBS in return for a block of its stock worth $3.8 million at the time.^[4] The agreement specified that Paramount would buy that same stock back for a flat $5 million by March 1, 1932, provided that CBS had earned $2 million during 1931 and 1932.^[7] For a brief time, there was talk that the network might be renamed "Paramount Radio", but it only lasted a month as the1929 stock market crash sent all stock value tumbling. It galvanized Paley and his troops, who had no alternative but to "turn the network around and earn the $2,000,000 in two years... This is the atmosphere in which the CBS of today was born."^[7] The near-bankrupt film studio sold its CBS shares back to the network in 1932.^[8] In the first year of Paley's watch, CBS's gross earnings more than tripled, going from $1.4 million to $4.7 million.^[9]

Much of the increase was a result of Paley's effort to improve affiliate relations. There were two types of program at the time: sponsored and sustaining, i.e., unsponsored. Rival networkNBC paid affiliates for every sponsored show they carried, and charged them for every sustaining show they ran.^[10] It was onerous for small and medium stations, and resulted in both unhappy affiliates and limited carriage of sustaining programs. Paley had a different idea, designed to get CBS programs emanating from as many radio sets as possible:^[9] he wouldgive the sustaining programs away for free, provided the station would run every sponsored show, and accept CBS's check for doing so.^[10] CBS soon had more affiliates than eitherNBC Red orNBC Blue.^[11]

Paley valued style and taste,^[12] and in 1929, once he had his affiliates happy and his company's creditworthiness on the mend, he relocated his company to the sleek, new 485Madison Avenue, the "heart of the advertising community, right where Paley wanted his company to be",^[13] and where it would stay until its move to its ownEero Saarinen-designed headquarters, the CBS Building, in 1965. When his new landlords expressed skepticism about the network and its fly-by-night reputation, Paley overcame their qualms by inking a lease for $1.5 million.^[13]

Since NBC was the broadcast arm of theRadio Corporation of America (RCA), its chiefDavid Sarnoff approached his decisions as both a broadcaster and as a hardware executive; NBC's affiliates all had the latest RCA broadcasting equipment, and were often the best-established stations, or were on "clear channel" frequencies. Yet Sarnoff's affiliates were mistrustful of him. Paley had no such split loyalties: his and his affiliates' success rose and fell with the quality of CBS programming.^[9]

Paley had an innate sense of entertainment.David Halberstam wrote that he had "a gift of the gods, an ear totally pure",^[14] and knew "what was good and would sell, what was bad and would sell, and what was good and would not sell, and he never confused one with another."^[15] As the 1930s loomed closer, Paley set about building the CBS talent stable. The network became the home to many popular musical and comedy stars, among themJack Benny ("YourCanada Dry Humorist"),Al Jolson,George Burns andGracie Allen, andKate Smith, whom Paley had personally selected for his family'sLa Palina Hour as she was not the type of woman to provoke jealousy in American wives.^[16] When Paley heard a phonograph record ofBing Crosby, then a young unknown crooner, on a mid-ocean voyage, he rushed to the ship's radio room and cabled New York to sign Crosby immediately to a contract for a daily radio show.^[17]

While the CBS primetime lineup featured music, comedy and variety shows, the daytime schedule was a direct conduit into American homes – and into the hearts and minds of American women. For many, it was the bulk of their adult human contact during the course of the day. CBS salesmen recognized early on that this intimate connection could be a bonanza for advertisers of female-interest products.^[18] Starting in 1930, astrologerEvangeline Adams would consult the heavens on behalf of listeners who sent in their birthdays, a description of their problems, and a boxtop from sponsor Forhan's toothpaste.^[19] The low-key murmuring of smooth-voiced Tony Wons, backed by a tender violin, "made him a soul mate to millions of women"^[20] on behalf of theR. J. Reynolds tobacco company, whose cellophane-wrappedCamel cigarettes were "as fresh as the dew that dawn spills on a field of clover".^[21] The most popular radio-friend of all wasM. Sayle Taylor, theVoice of Experience, though his name was never uttered on air.^[21] Women mailed descriptions of the most intimate of relationship problems to the Voice in the tens of thousands per week; sponsors Musterole ointment and Haley's M–O laxative enjoyed sales increases of several hundred percent in just the first month ofThe Voice of Experience's run.^[22]

As the decade progressed, a new genre joined the daytime lineup: serial dramasoap operas, so named for the products that sponsored them. These were usually in quarter-hour episodes and proliferated widely in the mid- and late 1930s. They all had the same basic premise, namely that characters "fell into two categories: 1) those in trouble and 2) those who helped people in trouble. The helping-hand figures were usually older."^[23] At CBS,Just Plain Bill brought human insight andAnacin pain reliever into households;Your Family and Mine came courtesy ofSealtest Dairy products;Bachelor's Children first hawked Old Dutch Cleanser, thenWonder Bread;Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories was sponsored bySpry Vegetable Shortening.Our Gal Sunday (Anacin again),The Romance of Helen Trent (Angélus cosmetics),Big Sister (Rinso laundry soap), and many others filled the daytime ether.^[24]

Thanks to its daytime and primetime schedules, CBS prospered in the 1930s. In 1935, gross sales were $19.3 million, yielding a profit of $2.27 million.^[25] By 1937, the network took in $28.7 million and had 114 affiliates,^[9] almost all of which cleared 100% of network-fed programming, thus keeping ratings, and revenue, high. In 1938, CBS acquired theAmerican Record Corporation, parent of its one-time investor Columbia Records.^[26] In 1938, NBC and CBS each opened broadcast studios onSunset Boulevard in Hollywood in order to attract the entertainment industry's top talent to their networks.^[27]

The extraordinary potential of radio news showed itself in 1930, when CBS suddenly found itself with a live telephone connection to a prisoner called "the Deacon", who described, from the inside and in real time, a riot and conflagration at theOhio Penitentiary; for CBS, it was "a shocking journalistic coup".^[28] Yet as late as 1934, there was still no regularly scheduled newscast on network radio; "most sponsors did not want network news programming; those that did were inclined to expect veto rights over it."^[29] There had been a longstanding wariness between radio and the newspapers as well; the papers had rightly concluded that the upstart radio business would compete with them in both advertising dollars and news coverage. By 1933, the newspapers began fighting back, many no longer publishing radio schedules for readers' convenience, or allowing their own news to be read on the air for radio's profit.^[30] Radio, in turn, pushed back when urban department stores, newspapers' largest advertisers and themselves owners of many radio stations, threatened to withhold their ads from print.^[31] A short-lived truce in 1933 even saw the papers proposing that radio be forbidden from running news before 9:30 a.m., and then only after 9:00 p.m., and that no news story could air until it was 12 hours old.^[32]

It was in this climate that Paley set out to "enhance the prestige of CBS, to make it seem in the public mind the more advanced, dignified and socially aware network".^[33] He did it by sustaining programming of theNew York Philharmonic,Norman Corwin's drama, and an in-house news division to gather and present news, free of fickle suppliers such as the newspapers orwire services.^[33] In the fall of 1934, CBS launched an independent news division, shaped in its first years by Paley's vice-president, formerNew York Times columnist Ed Klauber, and news directorPaul White. Since there was no blueprint or precedent for real-time news coverage, early efforts of the new division used the shortwave link-up CBS had been using for five years to bring live feeds of European events to its American air.^[34]

A key early hire wasEdward R. Murrow in 1935; his first corporate title was Director of Talks. He was mentored in microphone technique byRobert Trout, the lone full-time member of the News Division, and quickly found himself in a growing rivalry with his boss White.^[35] Murrow was glad to "leave the hothouse atmosphere of the New York office behind"^[36] when he was dispatched to London as CBS's European Director in 1937, when the growingHitler menace underscored the need for a robust European Bureau. Halberstam described Murrow in London as "the right man in the right place in the right era".^[37] Murrow began assembling the staff of broadcast journalists who would become known as the "Murrow Boys", including such men asWilliam L. Shirer,Charles Collingwood,Bill Downs, andEric Sevareid. They were "in [Murrow's] own image, sartorially impeccable, literate, often liberal, and prima donnas all".^[38] They covered history in the making, and sometimes made it themselves. On March 12, 1938, Hitler boldlyannexed nearby Austria, and Murrow and the Boys quickly assembled coverage with Shirer in London,Edgar Ansel Mowrer in Paris,Pierre Huss in Berlin,Frank Gervasi in Rome, and Trout in New York.^[39] This bore the now-ubiquitousNews Round-Up format.

Murrow's nightly reports from the rooftops during the dark days of theLondon Blitz galvanized American listeners. Even beforePearl Harbor, the conflict became "the story of the survival of Western civilization, the most heroic of all possible wars and stories. He was indeed reporting on the survival of the English-speaking peoples."^[40] With his "manly, tormented voice",^[41] Murrow contained and mastered the panic and danger he felt, thereby communicating it all the more effectively to his audience.^[41] Using his trademark self-reference "this reporter", he did not so much report news as interpret it, combining simplicity of expression with subtlety of nuance.^[42][41] Murrow himself said he tried to "describe things in terms that make sense to the truck driver without insulting the intelligence of the professor".^[41] When he returned home for a visit late in 1941, Paley threw an "extraordinarily elaborate reception"^[43] for Murrow at theWaldorf-Astoria. This reception also served as an announcement to the world that Paley's network was finally more than just a pipeline carrying other people's programming and had now become a cultural force in its own right.^[44]

When the war was over and Murrow returned for good, it was as "a superstar with prestige and freedom and respect within his profession and within his company".^[45] He possessed enormous capital within that company, and as the unknown form of television news loomed large, he would spend it freely, first in radio news, then in television, first taking on SenatorJoseph McCarthy, then eventually – and unsuccessfully – William S. Paley himself.^[46]

On October 30, 1938, CBS Radio gained a taste of infamy whenThe Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast a radio adaptation ofH. G. Wells'The War of the Worlds, performed and directed by 23-year-oldOrson Welles. Its unique format, a contemporary version of the story in the form of faux news broadcasts, allegedly told listeners that invaders from Mars were actually invading and devastatingGrover's Mill, New Jersey, despite three disclaimers during the broadcast stating that it was a work of fiction. The flood of publicity after the broadcast had two effects: a 1992 FCC law banning faux news bulletins within dramatic programming, and sponsorship forThe Mercury Theatre on the Air, becomingThe Campbell Playhouse to sell soup.^[47] Welles, for his part, summarized the episode as "the Mercury Theatre's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo!"^[48]

Before the United States joinedWorld War II, in 1940, CBS recruitedEdmund A. Chester from his position as Bureau Chief for Latin America at theAssociated Press to serve as Director of Latin American Relations and Director of Short Wave Broadcasts for the CBS radio network. In this capacity, Chester coordinated the development of the Network of the Americas (La Cadena de las Americas) with theDepartment of State, theOffice for Inter-American Affairs (chaired byNelson Rockefeller), and theVoice of America as part of President Roosevelt's support forPan-Americanism during World War II.^[49][50] 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 and the other nations. It featured such popular radio broadcasts asViva América,^[51] which showcased leading musical talent from both North and South America, includingJohn Serry Sr., as accompanied by the CBS Pan American Orchestra under the musical direction ofAlfredo Antonini.^[52][53] The post-war era also marked the beginning of CBS's dominance in the field of radio.^[54]

As 1939 wound down, Paley announced that 1940 would be "the greatest year in the history of radio in the United States".^[55] Indeed, the 1940s would turn out to be the apogee of network radio by every metric. Nearly 100% of the advertisers who made sponsorship deals in 1939 renewed their contracts for 1940; manufacturers of farm tractors made radios standard equipment on their machines;^[56] wartime rationing of paper limited the size of newspapers and thus print advertisements, causing a shift toward radio sponsorship.^[57] A 1942 act by Congress made advertising expenses a tax benefit,^[57] which sent even automobile and tire manufacturers – who had no products to sell since they had been converted to war production – scurrying to sponsor symphony orchestras and serious drama on radio.^[58] In 1940, only one-third of radio programs were sponsored, while two-thirds were sustaining; by the middle of the decade, the statistics had swapped.^[59] One of the more prominent sustaining shows on the network wasWings Over Jordan, a half-hour program on Sunday mornings showcasing an African-Americana cappellaspiritual choir of the same name.^[60] Originating from Cleveland affiliateWGAR, it was directly cited by theNational Association of Broadcasters when they bestowed both the station and network with inauguralGeorge Foster Peabody Awards in 1941.^[61]

CBS in the 1940s was vastly different from that of its early days; many of the old guard veterans had died, retired, or simply left the network.^[62] No change was greater than that in Paley himself, who had become difficult to work for, and had "gradually shifted from leader to despot".^[62] He spent much of his time seeking social connections and in cultural pursuits; his hope was that CBS "could somehow learn to run itself".^[62] His brief to an interior designer remodeling his townhouse included a requirement for closets that would accommodate 300 suits and 100 shirts, and had special racks for 100 neckties.^[63]

As Paley grew more remote, he installed a series of buffer executives who sequentially assumed more and more power at CBS: first Ed Klauber, then Paul Kesten, and finallyFrank Stanton. Second only to Paley as the author of CBS's style and ambitions in its first half-century, Stanton was "a magnificent mandarin who functioned as company superintendent, spokesman, and image-maker".^[64] He had come to the network in 1933 after sending copies of his Ph.D. thesis "A Critique Of Present Methods and a New Plan for Studying Radio Listening Behavior" to CBS top brass, and they responded with a job offer.^[65] He scored an early hit with his study "Memory for Advertising Copy Presented Visually vs. Orally", which CBS salesmen used to great effect, bringing in new sponsors.^[65] In 1946, Paley appointed Stanton as President of CBS and promoted himself to chairman. Stanton's colorful but impeccable wardrobe – slate-blue pinstripe suit, ecru shirt, robin's egg blue necktie with splashes of saffron – made him, in the mind of one sardonic CBS vice president, "the greatest argument we have for color television".^[66]

Despite the influx of advertisers and their money – or perhaps because of them – the 1940s were not without bumps for the radio networks. The biggest challenge came in the form of the FCC's chain broadcasting investigation, often called the "monopoly probe".^[67] Though it started in 1938, the investigation only gathered steam in 1940 under new-broom chairmanJames L. Fly.^[68] By the time the smoke had cleared in 1943, NBC had already spun off its Blue Network, which became theAmerican Broadcasting Company (ABC). CBS was also hit, though not as severely: Paley's 1928 affiliate contract, which had given CBS first claim on local stations' air during sponsored time – thenetwork option – came under attack as being restrictive to local programming.^[69] The final compromise permitted the network option for three out of four hours during the daytime, but the new regulations had virtually no practical effect, since most all stations accepted the network feed, especially the sponsored hours that earned them money.^[69] Fly's panel also forbade networks from owning artists' representation bureaus, so CBS sold its bureau toMusic Corporation of America, and it became Management Corporation of America.^[70]

On the air, the war affected almost every show. Variety shows wove patriotism through their comedy and music segments; dramas and soaps had characters join the service and go off to fight. Even before hostilities commenced in Europe, one of the most played songs on radio wasIrving Berlin's "God Bless America", popularized by CBS personality Kate Smith.^[71] Although an Office of Censorship sprang up within days of Pearl Harbor, censorship would be totally voluntary. A few shows submitted scripts for review, but most did not.^[72] The guidelines that the Office did issue banned weather reports (including announcement of sports rainouts), as well as news about war production or troop, ship, or plane movements, and live man-on-the-street interviews. The ban on ad-libbing caused quizzes, game shows, and amateur hours to wither for the duration.^[72]

Surprising was the "granite permanence" of the shows at the top of the ratings.^[73] The vaudevillians and musicians who were hugely popular after the war were the same stars who had been huge in the 1930s; Jack Benny, Bing Crosby,Burns and Allen, andEdgar Bergen all had been on the radio almost as long as there had been network radio.^[74] A notable exception to this was relative newcomerArthur Godfrey, who was still doing a local morning show in Washington, D.C. as late as 1942.^[75] Godfrey, who had been a cemetery lot salesman and a cab driver, pioneered the style of talking directly to the listener as an individual, with a singular "you" rather than phrases like "Now, folks..." or "Yes, friends...".^[76] His combined shows contributed as much as 12% of all CBS revenues; by 1948, he was making $500,000 a year.^[75]

In 1947, Paley, still the undisputed "head talent scout" of CBS,^[64] led a much-publicized "talent raid" on NBC. One day, whileFreeman Gosden andCharles Correll were hard at work at NBC writing their venerableAmos and Andy series, Paley came to the door with an astonishing offer: "Whatever you are getting now I will give you twice as much."^[77] Capturing NBC's cornerstone show was enough of acoup, but Paley repeated in 1948 with longtime NBC stars Edgar Bergen,Charlie McCarthy, andRed Skelton, as well as former CBS defectors Jack Benny, who was radio's top-rated comedian, and Burns and Allen. Paley achieved this rout with a legal agreement reminiscent of his 1928 contract that caused some NBC radio affiliates to jump ship and join CBS.^[77] CBS would buy the stars' names as a property in exchange for a large lump sum and salary.^[78] The plan relied on the vastly different tax rates between income and capital gains, so not only would the stars enjoy more than twice their income after taxes, but CBS would preclude any NBC counterattack because CBS owned the performers' names.^[77]

As a result of this, CBS finally beat NBC in the ratings in 1949,^[79] but it was not just to one-up rival Sarnoff that Paley led his talent raid; he and all of radio had their eye on the coming force that threw a shadow over radio throughout the 1940s – television.

In the spring of 1940, CBS staff engineerPeter Goldmark devised a system for color television that CBS management hoped would leapfrog the network over NBC and its existing black-and-white RCA system.^[80][81] The CBS system "gave brilliant and stable colors", while NBC's was "crude and unstable but 'compatible'".^[82] Ultimately, the FCC rejected the CBS system because it was incompatible with RCA's, along with the fact that CBS had moved to secure manyultra high frequency (UHF), notvery high frequency (VHF), television licenses, leaving them flatfooted in the early television age.^[83] In 1946, only 6,000 television sets were in operation, most in greater New York City where there were already three stations; by 1949, the number had increased to 3 million sets, and by 1951, had risen to 12 million.^[84] There were 64 American cities with television stations, though most of them only had one.^[85]

Radio continued to be the backbone of the company in the early 1950s, but it was "a strange, twilight period" where some cities had often multiple television stations which siphoned the audience from radio, while other cities such as Denver and Portland had no television stations at all. In those areas, as well as rural areas and some entire states, network radio remained the sole nationally broadcast service.^[74] NBC's venerableFred Allen saw his ratings plummet when he was pitted against upstart ABC's game showStop The Music!; within weeks, he was dropped by longtime sponsorFord Motor Company and was shortly gone from the scene.^[86] Radio powerhouseBob Hope's ratings plunged from a 23.8 share in 1949 to 5.4 in 1953.^[87] By 1952, "death seemed imminent for network radio" in its familiar form;^[88] most tellingly, the big sponsors were eager for the switch.

Gradually, as the television network took shape, radio stars began to migrate to the new medium. Many programs ran on both media while making the transition. The radio soap operaThe Guiding Light moved to television in 1952, where it would run for another 57 years; Burns & Allen, back "home" from NBC, 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-ratedJack Benny Program ended its radio run in 1955, and Edgar Bergen's Sunday night show went off the air a year later. In 1956, CBS announced that its radio operations had lost money, while the television network had made money.^[89] When the soap operaMa Perkins went off the air on November 25, 1960, only eight series remained, all relatively minor. Primetime radio ended on September 30, 1962, whenYours Truly, Johnny Dollar andSuspense aired for the final time.^[90]

The retirement of Arthur Godfrey in April 1972 marked the end of long-form programming on CBS radio; programming thereafter consisted of hourly news summaries and news features, known in the 1970s asDimension, and commentaries, including theSpectrum series that evolved into the "Point/Counterpoint" feature on the television network's60 Minutes andFirst Line Report, a news and analysis feature delivered by CBS correspondents. The network also continued to offer traditional radio programming through its nightlyCBS Radio Mystery Theater during week. This was the lone holdout of dramatic programming, which ran from 1974 to 1982, though shorter runs were given to theGeneral Mills Radio Adventure Theater,The Zero Hour and theSears/Mutual Radio Theater in the 1970s – early 1980s; otherwise, most new dramatic radio was carried on public and to some extent religious stations.^[91] The CBS Radio Network continues to this day, offering hourly newscasts, including its centerpieceCBS World News Roundup in the morning and evening and its weekend sister programCBS News Weekend Roundup, and various other segments such tip segments from various other sources.

On November 17, 2017, CBS Radio was sold to Entercom, becoming the last of the original Big Four radio networks to be owned by its founding company.^[92] Although the CBS parent itself ceased to exist when it was acquired by Westinghouse Electric in 1995, CBS Radio continued to be run by CBS until its sale to Entercom. Prior to its acquisition, ABC Radio was sold toCitadel Broadcasting in 2007 (and is now a part ofCumulus Media), while Mutual (now defunct) andNBC Radio were acquired byWestwood One in the 1980s. Westwood One and CBS were under common ownership from 1993 to 2007; the former would be acquired outright byDial Global in October 2011.

CBS's involvement in television dates back to the opening of experimental station W2XAB in New York City on July 21, 1931, using themechanical television system that had more or less been perfected in the late 1920s. Its initial broadcast featured New York mayorJimmy Walker,Kate Smith, andGeorge Gershwin. The station boasted the first regular seven-day broadcasting schedule in American television, broadcasting 28 hours a week.

Announcer-director Bill Schudt was the station's only paid employee; all other talent was volunteer. W2XAB pioneered program development including small-scale dramatic acts, monologues, pantomime, and the use of projection slides to simulate sets. Engineer Bill Lodge devised the first synchronized sound wave for a television station in 1932, enabling W2XAB to broadcast picture and sound on a single shortwave channel instead of the two previously needed. On November 8, 1932, W2XAB broadcast the first television coverage of presidential election returns. The station suspended operations on February 20, 1933, as monochrome television transmission standards were in flux, and in the process of changing from a mechanical to an all-electronic system. W2XAB returned to the air with an all-electronic system in 1939 from a new studio complex inGrand Central Station and a transmitter atop theChrysler Building, broadcasting on channel 2.^[93] W2XAB transmitted the first color broadcast in the United States on August 28, 1940.^[94]

On June 24, 1941, W2XAB received a commercialconstruction permit and program authorization as WCBW. The station went on the air at 2:30 p.m. on July 1, an hour after rival WNBT (channel 1, formerly W2XBS and nowWNBC), making it the second authorized, fully commercial television station in the United States. The FCC issued permits to CBS and NBC at the same time, and intended WNBT and WCBW to sign on simultaneously on July 1, so no one station could claim to be the "first".

During the period of the USA's participation in World War II, commercial television broadcasting was reduced dramatically. Towards the end of the war, however, it began to ramp up again, with an increased level of programming evident from 1944 to 1947 on the three New York television stations which operated in those years: the local stations of NBC, CBS andDuMont. As RCA and DuMont raced to establish networks and offer upgraded programming, CBS lagged, advocating an industry-wide shift and restart to UHF for their incompatible (with black and white) color system. The FCC putting an indefinite"freeze" on television licenses that lasted until 1952 did not help matters. 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 City) in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other major cities. Up to that point, CBS programming was seen on such stations asKTTV in Los Angeles, in which CBS – as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in that market – quickly purchased a 50% interest, partnering with theLos Angeles Times. CBS then sold its interest in KTTV (now the West Coast flagship station of theFox network) and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after CBS's existing Los Angeles radio property KNX), later to becomeKCBS-TV. In 1953, CBS bought pioneer Chicago television station WBKB, which had been signed on by former investor Paramount Pictures (and would again become a sister company of CBS decades later) as a commercial station in 1946, and changed that station's call sign toWBBM-TV, moving the CBS affiliation away fromWGN-TV.

WCBS-TV would ultimately be the only station (as of 2025^[update]) built and signed on by CBS. The rest of the stations would be acquired by CBS, either in an ownership stake or outright purchase. In television's early years, the network bought Washington, D.C. affiliate WOIC (nowWUSA) in a joint venture withThe Washington Post in 1950, only to sell its stake to the newspaper in 1954 due to tighter FCC ownership regulations. CBS would also temporarily return to relying on its own UHF technology by owning WXIX in Milwaukee (nowCW affiliateWVTV) and WHCT in Hartford (nowUnivision affiliateWUVN). However, as UHF was not viable for broadcasting at the time (due to the fact that most television sets of the time were not equipped with UHF tuners), CBS decided to sell those stations off and affiliate with VHF stationsWITI and WTIC-TV (nowWFSB).

In Milwaukee alone, CBS has gone through several affiliation changes since 1953, when its original primary affiliateWCAN-TV (now defunct) first signed on the air. Prior to WCAN's sign-on, selected CBS programming aired onWTMJ-TV, an NBC affiliate since 1947. In February 1955, when WCAN went off the air for good, CBS moved its programming to WXIX, which it had purchased several months earlier. In April 1959, CBS decided to move its programming to WITI, the city's newer VHF station at the time. In turn, CBS shut down WXIX, sold its license to local investors, and returned to the air that July as an independent station. The first WITI-CBS union only lasted exactly two years, as the network moved its programming toWISN-TV on April 2, 1961, with WITI taking the ABC affiliation; the two stations reversed the network swap in March 1977, with WITI returning to the CBS station lineup. CBS was later forced back onto UHF in Milwaukee due to anaffiliation agreement with New World Communications in 1994; it is now affiliated withWDJT-TV in that market, which has the longest-lasting relationship with CBS of any Milwaukee station that carried the network's programming.

More long-term, CBS bought stations in Philadelphia (WCAU, now owned by NBC) and St. Louis (KMOX-TV, nowKMOV), but would eventually sell these stations off as well. Before buying KMOX-TV, CBS had attempted to purchase and sign on the channel 11 license in St. Louis, nowKPLR-TV.^[95]

CBS did attempt to sign on a station in Pittsburgh after the freeze was lifted, as it was the sixth-largest market at the time, but had just one commercial VHF station in DuMont-owned WDTV, while the rest were either on UHF (the modern-dayWPGH-TV andWINP-TV) orpublic television (WQED). Although the FCC turned down CBS's request to buy the channel 9 license in nearby Steubenville, Ohio and move it to Pittsburgh (that station, initially CBS affiliate WSTV-TV, is now NBC affiliateWTOV-TV), CBS did score a major coup when Pittsburgh-basedWestinghouse Electric, co-founder of NBC, bought WDTV from struggling DuMont and opted to affiliate the now-recalledKDKA-TV with CBS instead of NBC (likeKDKA radio) due to NBC extorting and coercing Westinghouse to tradeKYW radio and WPTZ (nowKYW-TV) for Cleveland stationsWTAM, WTAM-FM (nowWMJI), and WNBK (nowWKYC); the trade ended up being reversed by order of the FCC and the Department of Justice in 1965 after an eight-year investigation.^[96] Had CBS not been able to affiliate with KDKA-TV, it would have affiliated with eventual NBC affiliate WIIC-TV (nowWPXI) once it signed on in 1957 instead.^[97] This coup would eventually lead to a much stronger relationship between Westinghouse and CBS.

The mid-1940s "talent raid" on NBC had brought over established radio stars, who became stars of CBS television programs as well. One reluctant CBS star refused to bring her radio showMy Favorite Husband to television unless the network would recast the show with her real-life husband in the lead.I Love Lucy debuted in October 1951, and was an immediate sensation, with 11 million of the 15 million total television sets watching (a 73%share).^[98] Paley and network president Frank Stanton had so little faith in the future of Lucille Ball's series that they granted her wish and allowed her husbandDesi Arnaz to take financial control of the comedy's production. This was the foundation of the Ball-ArnazDesilu empire, and is now considered a template for series production; it also served as the template for some television conventions that continue to exist including the use ofmultiple cameras to film scenes, the use of astudio audience, and theairing of past episodes forsyndication to other television outlets.^[99] The phenomenal success of the primetime, big-money quiz showThe $64,000 Question, propelled its creator Louis G. Cowan, first to an executive position as CBS's vice-president of creative services, then to the presidency of the CBS television network itself. When quiz show scandals involving "rigged" questions surfaced in 1959, he was fired by CBS.

CBS dominated television, now at the forefront of American entertainment and information, as it once had radio.^{[citation needed]} In 1953, the CBS television network would make its first profit,^[100] and would maintain dominance on television between 1955 and 1976.^[100] By the late 1950s, the network often controlled seven or eight of the slots on the "top ten" ratings list with well-respected shows such asRoute 66.

UnderJames T. Aubrey (1958–1965), CBS was able to balance prestigious television projects (befitting the "Tiffany Network" image), with more low culture, broad appeal programs. As such, the network had challenging fare likeThe Twilight Zone,The Defenders, andEast Side/West Side, as well asThe Andy Griffith Show,The Beverly Hillbillies,Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., andGilligan's Island.^[101]

This success would continue for many years, with CBS being bumped from first place only due to the rise of ABC in the mid-1970s. Perhaps because of its status as the top-rated network, CBS felt freer to gamble with controversial properties like theSmothers Brothers Comedy Hour andAll in the Family (and its many spinoffs) during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

By the end of the 1960s, CBS was very successful intelevision ratings, but many of its shows, includingThe Beverly Hillbillies,Gunsmoke,Mayberry R.F.D.,Petticoat Junction,Lassie,Hee Haw, andGreen Acres, were appealing to older and more rural audiences, rather than to the young, urban, and more affluent audiences that advertisers sought to target.Fred Silverman, who would later headABC and laterNBC, made the decision to cancel most of those otherwise hit shows by mid-1971 in what became colloquially referred to as the "rural purge", withGreen Acres cast memberPat Buttram remarking that the network canceled "anything with a tree in it".^[103][104] CBS also cancelled the variety shows ofRed Skelton,Ed Sullivan andJackie Gleason not only because of aging demographics but also reportedly due to the escalating expenses of these programs.

While the "rural" shows got the axe, new hits likeThe Mary Tyler Moore Show,All in the Family,The Bob Newhart Show,Cannon,Barnaby Jones,Kojak, andThe Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour took their place on the network's schedule and kept it at the top of the ratings through the early 1970s. The majority of these hits were overseen by then-East Coast vice presidentAlan Wagner.^[105]60 Minutes also moved to the 7:00 p.m. slot on Sundays in 1975, and became the first ever primetime television news program to enter the Nielsen Top 10 in 1978.

One of CBS's most popular shows during the period wasM*A*S*H, which ran for 11 seasons from 1972 to 1983, and was based on the hitRobert Altmanfilm of the same name. The2+1⁄2-hourseries finale, in its initial airing on February 28, 1983, had peak viewership of up to 125 million Americans (77% of all television viewership in the U.S. that night), which established it as the most watched television episode in the United States. It also held the distinction of having the largest single-night primetime viewership of any television program in U.S. history, until it was surpassed by theSuper Bowl, which has taken the record consistently since 2010 (through the annual championship game alternates between being broadcast by CBS and rival networks Fox and NBC).

Silverman also first developed his strategy ofspinning new shows off from established hit series while at CBS, withRhoda andPhyllis spun fromThe Mary Tyler Moore Show,Maude andThe Jeffersons fromAll in the Family, andGood Times fromMaude. After Silverman's departure, CBS dropped to second place behind ABC in the 1976–77 season, but still rated strongly, based on its earlier hits and some new ones, includingOne Day at a Time,Alice,Lou Grant,WKRP in Cincinnati,The Dukes of Hazzard,Trapper John, M.D. andDallas, which was the biggest hit of the early 1980s and holds the record for the most watched non-series finale television episode in the U.S. – the primetime telecast of theresolution episode of the internationally prominent "Who Shot J.R.?" cliffhanger on November 21, 1980.

By 1982, ABC had run out of steam and NBC was in dire straits, with many failed programming efforts greenlighted by Silverman during his tenure as network president. CBS nosed ahead once more thanks to the major success ofDallas (and its spin-offKnots Landing), as well as hits inFalcon Crest,Magnum, P.I.,Simon & Simon, and60 Minutes. CBS also acquired the broadcast rights to theNCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in 1982, which it now broadcasts every March since. CBS bought Emmy-winning documentary producer Dennis B. Kane's production company and formed CBS/Kane Productions International. The network managed to pull out a few new hits over the next couple of years, includingKate & Allie,Newhart,Cagney & Lacey,Scarecrow and Mrs. King, andMurder, She Wrote. However, this resurgence was short-lived, as CBS had become mired in debt as a result of a failed takeover effort byTed Turner, which CBS chairman Thomas Wyman successfully helped to fend off.^[106] The network sold its St. Louis owned-and-operated station KMOX-TV, and allowed the purchase of a large portion of its shares (under 25 percent) byLoew's Inc. chairmanLaurence Tisch. Collaboration between Paley and Tisch led to the slow dismissal of Wyman, with Tisch taking over as chief operating officer and Paley returning as chairman.^[107]

By the end of the1987–88 season, CBS had fallen to third place behind both ABC and NBC for the first time. In 1984,The Cosby Show andMiami Vice debuted on NBC and immediately garnered high ratings, helping NBC rise back to first place by the1985–86 season with a slate that included several other hits such asNight Court,Family Ties,Cheers,The Golden Girls,The Facts Of Life,L.A. Law, and227. ABC had also rebounded with hits such asDynasty,Who's the Boss?,Hotel,Full House,Growing Pains,The Wonder Years, andRoseanne.

Some of the groundwork had been laid as CBS fell in the ratings, with hitsSimon & Simon,Falcon Crest,Murder, She Wrote,Kate & Allie, andNewhart still on the schedule from the most recent resurgence, and to-be-hitsDesigning Women,Murphy Brown,Jake and the Fatman, and newsmagazine48 Hours all debuting in the late 1980s. CBS was also still getting decent ratings for60 Minutes,Dallas, andKnots Landing. During the early 1990s, CBS would bolster its sports lineup by obtaining thebroadcast television rights toMajor League Baseball (MLB) fromABC andNBC, and theWinter Olympics fromABC, despite losing theNational Basketball Association (NBA) toNBC after the1989–90 NBA season.

Under network president Jeff Sagansky, CBS was able to earn strong ratings from new showsDiagnosis: Murder,Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,Walker, Texas Ranger,Picket Fences,Northern Exposure,Evening Shade and a resurgentJake and the Fatman. CBS was briefly able to reclaim first place during the1992–93 season. However, CBS's programming slate skewed toward an older demographic than ABC, NBC, or even the fledglingFox network. In 1993, CBS made a breakthrough in establishing a successfullate-night talk show franchise to compete with NBC'sThe Tonight Show when it signedDavid Letterman away from NBC after theLate Night host was passed over asJohnny Carson's successor onTonight in favor ofJay Leno.

Despite having success with theLate Show with David Letterman, CBS as a whole suffered in 1993. CBS lost the rights to two major sports leagues; it terminated its rights to MLB after losing approximately $500 million over a four-year span, and MLB reached anew contract with NBC and ABC. On December 17, 1993, in a move that surprised many media analysts and television viewers, Fox – then a fledgling network which had begun to accrue several popular programs in the Nielsen Top 20 during its seven years on air – outbid CBS for the broadcast rights to theNational Football Conference (NFC), stripping CBS ofNational Football League (NFL) telecasts for the first time since CBS began broadcasting games from the pre-merger NFL in 1955. Fox bid $1.58 billion for the NFC television rights, significantly higher than CBS's reported offer of $290 million to retain the contract.^[108]

The acquisition of the NFC rights, which took effect with the1994 NFL season and led to CBS being nicknamed "Can't Broadcast Sports",^[109] resulted in Foxstriking a series of affiliation deals with longtime affiliates of each of the Big Three networks. CBS bore the brunt of the switches, losing itsPhoenix,Milwaukee,Cleveland,Detroit,Austin,Dallas-Fort Worth,Wilmington, North Carolina,Tampa-St. Petersburg,Yuma andAtlanta affiliates to Fox; eight of those stations were owned byNew World Communications.^[110] Most of the stations with which CBS ended up affiliating to replace the previous affiliates it lost to Fox were former Fox affiliates andindependent stations, but had limited local news presence prior to joining CBS. CBS attempted to fill its loss of the NFL by going after the rights to theNational Hockey League (NHL), which it again lost toFox.^[111] In early 1995, CBS would begin to rebuild its sports division by acquiring the rights to additionalNASCAR races. However, CBS would be stripped of its contract withNASCAR in December 1999, andFox andNBC acquired the rights in 2001.^[112]

The loss of the NFL, along with an ill-fated effort to court younger viewers, led to a drop in CBS's ratings. One of the affected shows was theLate Show with David Letterman, which saw its viewership decline in large part due to the affiliation switches, at times even landing in third place in its timeslot behind ABC'sNightline. As a result, NBC'sThe Tonight Show with Jay Leno, which had previously been dominated by theLate Show, became the top-rated late-night talk show.^[113] However, CBS was able to produce some hits during the mid-1990s such asThe Nanny,JAG (which moved to the network from NBC),Chicago Hope,Cosby,Cybill,Touched by an Angel, andEverybody Loves Raymond.

During this time, several longtime affiliates beside the ones that were defected to Fox also defected from CBS in markets such asAnniston (WJSU-TV),Bakersfield (KERO-TV),Baltimore (WBAL-TV),Boston (WHDH-TV),Cincinnati (WCPO-TV),Denver (KMGH-TV),Eureka (KIEM-TV),Evansville (WEHT-TV),Fairbanks (KTVF),Flint (WEYI-TV),Fresno (KFSN-TV),Green Bay (WBAY-TV),Huntington (WCHS-TV),Jacksonville (WJXT),Knoxville (WBIR-TV),Louisville (WHAS-TV),Marquette (WLUC-TV),Miami (WTVJ),New Bedford (WLNE-TV),Omaha (WOWT),Philadelphia (WCAU-TV),Raleigh (WTVD-TV),Rochester (WHEC-TV),Salt Lake City (KSL-TV),Sacramento (KXTV),Seattle (KIRO-TV),Tuscaloosa (WCFT-TV) andWest Palm Beach (WTVX). Most of these stations were wooed away by NBC, which had lifted out of last place to become the #1 network between the late 1980s and early 2000s, while WGWW, KERO-TV, WCPO-TV, KMGH, WEHT-TV, KFSN, WBAY, WCHS, WHAS, WLUC, WLNE, WTVD, KXTV and WCFT went to ABC, WJXT and WTVX became independent stations and KIRO and WLYH went to UPN. Ironically, WBAL was an NBC affiliate prior to swapping stations withWMAR-TV in 1981 and WBAL became a CBS affiliate, only to return to NBC in 1995.^[114] In the case of WTVD and KFSN, both station remain ABC owned and operated stations, while WCAU and WTVJ became NBC owned and operated stations. KIRO-TV had since rejoined the network,^[115] while WHDH became an independent station.^[116] In case of the two Alabama stations, it became Howard Stirk-owned stations.^[117][118]

During the1997–98 season, CBS attempted to court families on Fridays with the launch of a family-oriented comedy block known as theCBS Block Party. This block consisted of shows likeMeego, andThe Gregory Hines Show, all but the last coming fromMiller-Boyett Productions. The lineup failed to compete against ABC'sTGIF lineup, asMeego andHines were canceled by November. That winter, CBS aired its last Olympic Games to date with its telecast of the1998 Winter Games inNagano.

In 1997, CBS regained the NFL through its acquisition of the broadcast television rights to theAmerican Football Conference (AFC), effective with the1998 season.^[119] The contract was struck shortly before the AFC's emergence as the dominant NFL conference over the NFC, spurred in part by the turnaround of theNew England Patriots during the 2000s. With the help of the AFC package, CBS surpassed NBC for first place in the1998–99 season, although it was beaten by ABC the following year. CBS gained additional hits in the late 1990s and early 2000s with series such asThe King of Queens,Nash Bridges,Judging Amy,Becker, andYes, Dear.

Another turning point for CBS came in the summer of 2000, when it debuted the summer reality showsSurvivor andBig Brother, which became surprise summer hits for CBS. In January 2001, CBS debuted thesecond season ofSurvivor after its broadcast ofSuper Bowl XXXV, and scheduled it on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time; it also moved the investigative crime dramaCSI (which had debuted that fall in the Friday 9:00 p.m. time slot) to followSurvivor at 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays. The pairing of the two shows was both able to chip away at and eventually beat NBC's Thursday night lineup.

During the 2000s, CBS found additional successes with a slew of police procedurals, several of which were produced byJerry Bruckheimer. These includedCold Case,Without a Trace,Criminal Minds,NCIS, andThe Mentalist, along withCSI spinoffsCSI: Miami andCSI: NY. CBS also featured several prominent sitcoms likeStill Standing,Two and a Half Men,How I Met Your Mother,The New Adventures of Old Christine,Rules of Engagement, andThe Big Bang Theory, as well as the reality showThe Amazing Race. CBS's programming slate, buoyed largely by the success ofCSI, briefly led it to retake first place in the ratings from NBC during the2002–03 season. The 2000s also saw CBS finally make ratings headway on Friday nights, a perennial weak spot for CBS, with a focus toward drama series such asGhost Whisperer and the relatively short-lived but acclaimedJoan of Arcadia.

CBS became the most watched American broadcast television network once again in the2005–06 season. The next year, Fox overtook CBS for first place, becoming the first non-Big Three network to earn the title as the most watched network overall in the United States. Fox's first-place finish that season was primarily due to its reliance onAmerican Idol (the longest reigning number-one primetime U.S. television program from 2004 to 2011) and the effects of the2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. CBS retook its place as the top-rated network in the2008–09 season, where it has remained every season since, except 2023, when it was beaten by NBC.^[120][121] Fox and CBS, both having ranked as the highest rated of the major broadcast networks during the 2000s, tend to nearly equal one another in the 18–34, 18–49, and 25–54 demographics.NCIS, which has been the flagship of CBS's Tuesday lineup for much of its run, became CBS's highest-rated drama during the 2007–08 season.

The 2010s saw additional hits for CBS, including the drama seriesThe Good Wife; the police proceduralsPerson of Interest,Blue Bloods,Elementary,Hawaii Five-0, andNCIS spin-offNCIS: Los Angeles; the reality seriesUndercover Boss; and the sitcoms2 Broke Girls andMike & Molly.The Big Bang Theory, one of several sitcoms from veteran writer/producerChuck Lorre, started off with modest ratings, but saw its viewership skyrocket, earning ratings of up to 17 million viewers per episode. It became the top-rated network sitcom in the United States by the2010–11 season, as well as the second most watched American television program by the2013–14 season, when the series became the anchor of the network's Thursday lineup. Meanwhile,Two and a Half Men saw its ratings decline to respectable levels for its final four seasons following the 2011 firing of original starCharlie Sheen and the addition ofAshton Kutcher as its primary lead.

Until 2012, CBS ranked in second place among adults 18–49, but after the ratings declines Fox experienced during the2012–13 season, CBS was able to take the top spot in the demographic, as well as in total viewership (for the fifth year in a row) by the start of 2013. At the end of the 2012–13 season, the tenth season ofNCIS took the top spot among the season's most watched network programs, giving CBS its first top-rated show since the 2002–03 season, whenCSI: Crime Scene Investigation led Nielsen's seasonal primetime network ratings.

The strength of CBS's2013–14 slate led to a surplus of series on its2014–15 schedule, with 21 series held over from the previous season along with eight new series, including moderate hits inMadam Secretary,NCIS: New Orleans, andScorpion. The network also aired midseason hitsThe Odd Couple andCSI spinoffCSI: Cyber. CBS also expanded its NFL coverage through a partnership with theNFL Network to carryThursday Night Football games during the first eight weeks of the NFL season.^[122]

On September 29, 2016, National Amusements, the owner of both CBS's parent company CBS Corporation and its sister companyViacom, sent a letter to both companies, encouraging them to merge back into one company.^[123] The deal was called off on December 12.^[124] However, on January 12, 2018, it was reported that both CBS and Viacom were re-entering talks to merge.^[125] On August 13, 2019, CEOShari Redstone announced that Viacom and CBS agreed to a merger which would reunite the two media giants after 14 years.^[126]

The two companies have also been reported as in talks to acquireLionsgate, following the proposedacquisition of 21st Century Fox and its assets bythe Walt Disney Company.^[127]Amazon,Verizon, andComcast (the owner of NBC) have also shown interest in acquiring Lionsgate.^[128][129] Lionsgate Vice ChairmanMichael Burns stated in an interview withCNBC that Lionsgate was mostly interested in merging with CBS and Viacom.^[130]

Chuck Lorre announced in May 2022 thatB Positive andUnited States of Al were both cancelled by CBS after two seasons.^[131][132]HFPA was rebranded toGolden Globe Foundation on June 12, 2023,^[133] and after that, theGolden Globe Awards moved fromNBC to CBS on January 7, 2024.^[134]Bob Hearts Abishola aired its series finale on May 6, 2024,^[135] whileYoung Sheldon aired its series finale on May 16, 2024.^[136] The series premiere ofGeorgie & Mandy's First Marriage aired on October 17, 2024,^[137] while the series premiere ofPoppa's House aired on October 21, 2024.^[138]

Upon becoming commercial station WCBW in 1941, the pioneer CBS television station in New York City broadcast two daily news programs, at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. weekdays, anchored by Richard Hubbell. Most of the newscasts featured Hubbell reading a script with only occasional cutaways to a map or still photograph. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, WCBW, usually off-the-air on Sundays to give the engineers a day off, took to the air at 8:45 p.m. that evening with an extensive special report. The national emergency even broke down the unspoken wall between CBS radio and television. WCBW executives convinced radio announcers and experts such as George Fielding Elliot and Linton Wells to come down to the station's Grand Central Station studios during the evening and to give information and commentary on the attack. Although WCBW's special report that night lasted less than 90 minutes, that special broadcast pushed the limits of live television in 1941, and opened up new possibilities for future broadcasts. As CBS wrote in a special report to the FCC, the unscheduled live news broadcast on December 7 was "unquestionably the most stimulating challenge and marked the greatest advance of any single problem faced up to that time". Additional newscasts were scheduled in the early days of the war.

In May 1942, WCBW, like almost all television stations, sharply cut back its live program schedule and canceled its newscasts, as the station temporarily suspended studio operations, resorting exclusively to the occasional broadcast of films. This was primarily because much of the staff had either joined the service or had been redeployed to war-related technical research, as well as because it was necessary to prolong the life of the cameras, which were now impossible to repair due to the lack of parts available during wartime. In May 1944, as the war began to turn in favor of the Allies, WCBW reopened its studios and resumed production of its newscasts, which were briefly anchored byNed Calmer and then by Everett Holles.^[139] After the war, WCBW, which changed its call letters toWCBS-TV in 1946, introduced expanded news programs on its schedule. These were first anchored by Milo Boulton and later byDouglas Edwards. On May 3, 1948, Edwards began anchoringCBS Television News, a regular 15-minute nightly newscast on the rudimentary CBS television network, including WCBS-TV. Airing every weeknight at 7:30 p.m., it was the first regularly scheduled, network television news program featuring an anchor; the nightlyLowell Thomas NBC radio network newscast was simulcast on television locally on NBC's WNBT (nowWNBC) for a time in the early 1940s, and Hubbell, Calmer, Holles and Boulton on WCBW in the early and mid-1940s, but these were local television broadcasts seen only in the New York City area. In contrast, theNBC Television Newsreel, the NBC television network's offering at the time which premiered in February 1948, was simply film footage with voice narration to provide illustration of the stories. In 1949, CBS offered the first live television coverage of the proceedings of theUnited Nations General Assembly. This journalistic tour-de-force was under the direction ofEdmund A. Chester, who was appointed to the post of Director for News, Special Events, and Sports at CBS Television in 1948.

In 1950, the nightly newscast was retitledDouglas Edwards with the News, and became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts the following year, thanks to a newcoaxial cable connection. As such, Edwards used the greeting "Good evening everyone, coast to coast". The broadcast was renamed theCBS Evening News whenWalter Cronkite replaced Edwards in 1962.^[140] Edwards remained with CBS News as anchor/reporter for various daytime television and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988.

Although CBS Television was the first with a working color television system, the network lost out to RCA in 1953, in part because its color system was incompatible with existing black-and-white sets. Although RCA – then the parent company of NBC – made its color system available to CBS, the network was not interested in boosting RCA's profits, and televised only a few specials in color for the rest of the decade.

The specials included theFord Star Jubilee programs (which included the first ever telecast ofThe Wizard of Oz), as well as the 1957 telecast ofRodgers and Hammerstein'sCinderella,Cole Porter's musical version ofAladdin, andPlayhouse 90's only color broadcast, the 1958 production ofThe Nutcracker. TheNutcracker telecast (hosted byJune Lockhart) was based on the famous production staged annually since 1954 in New York, and performed by the New York City Ballet. CBS would later show two other versions of the ballet, a one-hour German-American version hosted byEddie Albert, shown annually for three years beginning in 1965, and the popularMikhail Baryshnikov production from 1977 to 1981.

Beginning in 1959,The Wizard of Oz became an annual tradition on color television. It had been the success of NBC's 1955 telecast of the musicalPeter Pan, which became the most watched television special of its time, that inspired CBS to telecastThe Wizard of Oz,Cinderella, andAladdin.

From 1960 to 1965, the CBS television network limited its color broadcasts to only a few special presentations such asThe Wizard of Oz, and only if the sponsor would pay for it. In the early 1960s, Red Skelton was the first CBS host to telecast his weekly programs in color using a converted movie studio. He tried unsuccessfully to persuade the network to use his facility for other programs, and was forced to sell it. Rival NBC was pushing for the use of color at the time. Even ABC had several color programs beginning in the fall of 1962, although those were limited due to financial and technical issues the network was going through. One particularly notable television special aired by CBS during this era was the Charles Collingwood-hosted tour of theWhite House with First Lady Jackie Kennedy, which was broadcast in black and white.

Beginning in 1963,The Lucy Show began filming in color at the insistence of its star and producer Lucille Ball, who realized that color episodes would command more money when they were eventually sold into syndication. Even this show, however, was broadcast in black and white through the end of the1964–65 season. This would all change by the mid-1960s, when market pressure forced CBS Television to begin adding color programs to its regular schedule for the1965–66 season and complete the transition to the format during the1966–67 season. By the fall of 1967, nearly all of CBS's television programs were in color, as was the case with those aired by NBC and ABC. A notable exception wasThe Twentieth Century, which consisted mostly of newsreel archival footage, but even this program used at least some color footage by the late 1960s. CBS, which had reluctantly purchased a handful of the early RCA color cameras from its archrival in the 1950s, began deploying the new color studio cameras fromPhilips by 1965, which bore theNorelco brand name at that time.^[141]

In 1965, CBS telecast a new color version of Rodgers and Hammerstein'sCinderella. This version, starringLesley Ann Warren andStuart Damon in the roles formerly played byJulie Andrews andJon Cypher, was shot on videotape (at itsTelevision City complex in Los Angeles) rather than being telecast live, and would become an annual tradition on the network for the next nine years.

In 1967, NBC outbid CBS for the rights to the annual telecast ofThe Wizard of Oz, and the film moved to NBC beginning the following year. However, in 1976, CBS reacquired the television rights to the film, with the network continuing to broadcast it through the end of 1997. CBS airedThe Wizard of Oz twice in 1991, in March and again the night before Thanksgiving. Thereafter, it was broadcast the night before Thanksgiving.

By the end of the 1960s, CBS was broadcasting virtually its entire programming lineup in color.

CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Formerly	United Independent Broadcasters, Inc. (1927–1928) Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System (1928) Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (1928–1974) CBS, Inc. (1974–1997)
Company type	Public (until 1995) Subsidiary (1995-present)
Traded as	NYSE: CBS (1937-1995)
Industry	Broadcasting
Founded	September 18, 1927 (98 years ago) (1927-09-18)
Founder	Arthur Judson William S. Paley
Headquarters	CBS Building, New York City,New York , United States
Owner	Paramount Skydance Corporation
Parent	CBS Entertainment Group

In the mid-1950s CBS reorganized into various divisions, each with much autonomy.^[142] Prior to the 1960s, the company's acquisitions, such as American Record Corporation and Hytron, had mostly related to its broadcasting business. During the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS did operate a CBS-Columbia division, which manufactured phonographs, radios, and television sets; however, the company had problems with product quality, and CBS never achieved much success in that field. In 1955, CBS purchased animation studioTerrytoons from its founderPaul Terry, not only acquiring Terry's 25-year backlog of cartoons for the network, but continuing the studio's ongoing contract to provide theatrical cartoons for20th Century Fox well into the 1960s.

During the 1960s, CBS began an effort to diversify its portfolio and looked for suitable investments.^[142] In 1965, CBS acquired electric guitar makerFender fromLeo Fender, who agreed to sell his company due to health problems. The purchase also included that ofRhodes electric pianos, which had already been acquired by Fender. The quality of the products manufactured by these acquired companies fell dramatically, resulting in the terms "pre-CBS" to refer to products of higher quality and "CBS" for mass-produced products of lower quality.

In other diversification attempts, CBS would buy and later sell a variety of other properties. This included sports teams, especially theNew York Yankees baseball club;^[142] book and magazine publishers, such asFawcett Publications, which includedWoman's Day, andHolt, Rinehart and Winston); map-makers and toy manufacturers likeGabriel Toys, Child Guidance, Wonder Products, Gym Dandy, and Ideal;X-Acto;^[143] and distributors of educational films andfilm strips, namely Bailey Films Inc. and Film Associates of California. CBS eventually merged the two film companies into a single company, BFA Educational Media. CBS also developed an earlyhome video system called EVR (Electronic Video Recording), but was never able to launch it successfully.

Paley and Stanton fired Aubrey in 1965 after a successful but controversial career; among the reasons was Paley's reported fear that Aubrey would take over CBS if something were to happen to them.^[142] Paley attempted to find the one person who could follow in his footsteps. However, numerous successors-in-waiting came and went. By the mid-1980s, investor Laurence Tisch had begun to acquire substantial holdings in CBS. Eventually, he gained Paley's confidence and, with his support, took control of CBS in 1986. Tisch's primary interest was turning profits. When CBS faltered, underperforming units were given the ax. Among the first properties to be jettisoned was the Columbia Records group, which had been part of the company since 1938. In 1986, Tisch also shut down theCBS Technology Center inStamford, Connecticut, which had started in New York City in the 1930s as CBS Laboratories and had evolved to become the company's technology research and development unit.

Through itsCBS Productions unit, the company produced a few shows for non-CBS networks, like NBC'sCaroline in the City.

Columbia Records was acquired by CBS in 1938. In 1962, CBS launchedCBS Records International to market Columbia recordings outside of North America, where the Columbia name was controlled by other entities. In 1966, CBS Records was made a separate subsidiary of the Columbia Broadcasting System.^[144] CBS sold the CBS Records Group toSony on November 17, 1987, initiating a Japanese buying spree of American companies, includingMCA,Pebble Beach Co.,Rockefeller Center, and even theEmpire State Building, which continued into the 1990s. The record company was rechristened asSony Music Entertainment in 1991, as Sony had a short-term license on the CBS name.

Sony purchased its rights to the Columbia Records name outside the United States, Canada, Spain and Japan fromEMI. Sony now uses Columbia Records as a label name in all countries except Japan, where Sony Records remains their flagship label. Sony acquired the Spanish rights when Sony Music merged withBertelsmann subsidiaryBMG in 2004 asSony BMG; Sony bought out BMG's share in 2008. CBS Corporation formed a new record label namedCBS Records in 2006.

In 1967, CBS entered the publishing business by acquiringHolt, Rinehart & Winston, a publisher of trade books and textbooks, as well as the magazineField & Stream. The following year, CBS acquired the medical publishing companySaunders and merged it with Holt, Rinehart & Winston. In 1971, CBS acquired Bond/Parkhurst, the publisher ofRoad & Track andCycle World. CBS greatly expanded its magazine business by purchasing Fawcett Publications in 1974, bringing in such magazines asWoman's Day. In 1982, CBS acquired British publisherCassell fromMacmillan Inc.^[145] In 1984, it acquired the majority of the publications owned byZiff Davis.

CBS sold its book publishing businesses in 1985. The educational publishing division, which retained the Holt, Rinehart & Winston name, was sold toHarcourt Brace Jovanovich; the American trade book division, renamedHenry Holt and Company, was sold to the West German publisherHoltzbrinck. Cassell was sold in a management buyout.^[146] CBS exited the magazine business through the sale of the unit to its executive Peter Diamandis, who later sold the magazines toHachette Filipacchi Médias in 1988, formingHachette Filipacchi Media U.S.

Forming the CBS Musical Instruments division, the company also acquired Fender (1965–1983), Electro-Music Inc. (Leslie speakers) (1965–1980),Rogers Drums (1966–1983),Steinway pianos (1972–1985),Gemeinhardt flutes,Lyon & Healy harps (in the late 1970s),Rodgers (institutional) organs, andGulbransen home organs. The company's last musical instrument manufacturer purchase was its 1981 acquisition of the assets of then-bankruptARP Instruments, a developer of electronic synthesizers.

It is widely held that the quality of Fender guitars and amplifiers declined significantly between 1965 and 1985, outraging Fender fans. Because of this, CBS Musical Instruments division executives executed a leveraged buyout in 1985, and created Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. At the same time, CBS divested itself of Rodgers, along with Steinway and Gemeinhardt, all of which were purchased by holding company Steinway Musical Properties. The other musical instrument manufacturing properties were also liquidated.

CBS made a brief, unsuccessful move into film production in the late 1960s, when they createdCinema Center Films. The studio released such films as the 1969Steve McQueen dramaThe Reivers and the 1970Albert Finney musicalScrooge. This profitless unit was shut down in 1972; the distribution rights to the Cinema Center library today rest with Paramount Pictures for home video (viaCBS Home Entertainment) and theatrical release, and with CBS Television Distribution for television syndication; most other ancillary rights remain with CBS.

Ten years after Cinema Center ceased operations, in 1982, CBS tried again to break into the film industry by co-foundingTriStar Pictures, ajoint venture withColumbia Pictures andHBO. Despite releasing box office successes such asThe Natural,Places in the Heart, andRambo: First Blood Part II, CBS felt the studio was not making a profit, and sold its stake in TriStar to Columbia Pictures' then-corporate parentThe Coca-Cola Company in 1985.^[147] Today, TriStar is now underSony Pictures Entertainment.

In 2007, CBS Corporation announced its intent to re-enter the feature film business, slowly launching CBS Films and hiring key executives in the spring of 2008 to start up the new venture. The CBS Films name had been used previously in 1953, when it was briefly used as CBS's distributor of off-network and first-run syndicated programming to local television stations in the United States and internationally.

CBS entered into the home video market when it partnered withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to formMGM/CBS Home Video in 1978. The joint venture was dissolved in 1982, after MGM purchasedUnited Artists (UA). CBS later partnered with 20th Century Fox to formCBS/Fox Video. CBS's duty was to release some of the film titles released by TriStar Pictures under the CBS/Fox Video label.

The CBS Toys Division of CBS Inc. purchased Child Guidance,Creative Playthings of Framingham, Massachusetts and Hagerstown, Maryland; Gilbert; Gym-Dandy of Bossier City, Louisiana; Hubley; Ideal; Kohner; and Wonder Products of Collierville, Tennessee.^[148][149]

CBS entered thevideo game market briefly through its acquisition of Gabriel Toys (renamed CBS Toys). It published several arcade adaptations and original titles under the name CBS Electronics for theAtari 2600 and other consoles and computers; it also produced one of the first karaoke players. CBS Electronics also distributed allColeco-related video game products in Canada, including theColecoVision. CBS later sold Gabriel Toys toView-Master, which eventually ended up as part ofMattel.

By the early 1990s, profits had fallen as a result of competition from cable television and video rentals, as well as the high cost of programming. About 20 former CBS affiliates switched to the rapidly rising Fox network in the mid-1990s, the first of which were reportedlyKDFX inPalm Springs, California, andKECY inYuma, Arizona, which made the switch in August 1994. Many other television markets lost their CBS affiliate for a while. The network's ratings were acceptable, but it struggled with an image of stodginess. Laurence Tisch lost interest and sought a new buyer.

In the mid-1990s, CBS formed an affiliate relationship with theWestinghouse Electric Corporation partially in reaction to a1994 agreement between Fox andNew World Communications, which resulted in the loss of many of CBS's longtime affiliates owned by New World.

In response, CBS began affiliating with UHF stations in Detroit and Cleveland, namely former Fox affiliateWOIO and low-rated ethnic independent WGPR-TV (nowWWJ-TV), which CBS eventually purchased. This was, however, only after CBS failed to wooWXYZ-TV andWEWS-TV, the respective longtime ABC affiliates in those markets (the latter of which had been a CBS affiliate from 1947 to 1955), to replace departing affiliatesWJBK andWJW-TV. TheE. W. Scripps Company actually used this situation as leverage to sign a group-wide affiliation deal with ABC that kept the network on WXYZ and WEWS.^[150][151]

Included in the Scripps deal was Baltimore NBC affiliateWMAR-TV, which had been affiliated with CBS from 1948 to 1981. With this agreement, WMAR-TV was able to displace longtime ABC affiliate and Westinghouse-ownedWJZ-TV, which had long been the Baltimore market's dominant station, while WMAR-TV had been in a distant third and had even nearly lost its broadcast license in 1991.^[152] WJZ-TV's loss of the ABC affiliation did not sit well with Westinghouse. Even before the New World deal, the company had been seeking a group-wide affiliation deal of its own, but it accelerated the process after the Scripps–ABC agreement.^[153]

In July 1994, Westinghouse signed a long-term deal to affiliate all five of its television stations, including WJZ-TV, with CBS.^[154][155]KPIX in San Francisco andKDKA-TV in Pittsburgh were already longtime affiliates of the network, whileKYW-TV in Philadelphia andWBZ-TV in Boston were longtime affiliates of NBC. The network decided to sell off its Philadelphia owned-and-operated stationWCAU to NBC, even though it was rated much higher locally than KYW-TV at the time. While WJZ-TV and WBZ-TV switched to CBS in January 1995, the KYW-TV swap was delayed after CBS discovered that an outright sale of channel 10 would have resulted in massive taxes on the proceeds from the deal.^[156] To solve this, CBS, NBC, and Westinghouse, known also as Group W, entered into a complex ownership/affiliation deal in November 1994 (which was scheduled to take effect in the fall of 1995). NBC tradedKCNC-TV in Denver andKUTV in Salt Lake City (which had been acquired by NBC earlier that year) to CBS in return for WCAU, which, for legal reasons, was considered an even trade. CBS then traded controlling interest in KCNC and KUTV to Group W in return for a minority stake in KYW-TV. As compensation for the loss of stations, NBC and CBS traded transmitter facilities in Miami, with the NBC-ownedWTVJ moving to channel 6 and the CBS-owned WCIX moving to channel 4 asWFOR-TV.^[157]

On August 1, 1995, Westinghouse announced it was acquiring CBS outright for $5.4 billion;^[158][159] the deal was completed on November 24.^[160] Under the name Group W, it had been one of the major broadcasting group owners of commercial radio and television stations since 1920, and was seeking to transition from a station operator to a major media company with its purchase of CBS. Except for KUTV, which CBS sold toFour Points Media Group in 2007 and is now owned bySinclair Broadcast Group, all of the stations involved in the initial Westinghouse deal as well as WWJ-TV remain owned-and-operated stations of the network to this day.

Westinghouse's acquisition of CBS turned the combined company'sall-news radio stations in New York City (WCBS andWINS) and Los Angeles (KNX andKFWB) from bitter rivals to sister stations. While KFWB switched from all-news to news/talk in 2009, WINS and WCBS remain all-news stations. WINS, which had pioneered the all-news format in 1965, generally restricts its news coverage to the five coreNew York City boroughs, while WCBS, with its much more powerful signal, covers the surrounding tri-state metropolitan area. In Chicago, Westinghouse'sWMAQ began to feature long-form stories and discussions about the news. It often focused on business news so as to differentiate itself fromWBBM. This lasted until 2000, when an FCC ownership situation resulted in CBS Radio's decision to move its all-sports networkWSCR to WMAQ's signal and to sell off the former WSCR facility.

In 1997, Westinghouse acquired theInfinity Broadcasting Corporation, which owned more than 150 radio stations, for $4.9 billion. Also that year, Westinghouse created CBS Cable, a division formed upon the acquisition ofthe Nashville Network (nowParamount Network) andCountry Music Television from theGaylord Entertainment Company, and the creation ofCBS Eye on People, which was later sold toDiscovery Communications. CBS also owned the Spanish-language news networkCBS Telenoticias.

Following the Infinity purchase, operation and sales responsibilities for the CBS Radio Network were handed to Infinity, which turned management over to Westwood One, a major radio program syndicator that Infinity managed. Westwood One had previously purchased theMutual 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 Westwood One umbrella. As of 2008^[update], 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. The same year the company purchased Infinity, Westinghouse changed its name to CBS Corporation, and its corporate headquarters were moved from Pittsburgh to New York City. 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 ofAmerican Radio Systems Corporation for $2.6 billion.

In 1999, CBS paid $2.5 billion to acquireKing World Productions, a television syndication company whose programs includedThe Oprah Winfrey Show,Jeopardy!, andWheel of Fortune. By the end of 1999, apart from the retention of rights to the name for brand licensing purposes, all pre-CBS elements of Westinghouse's industrial past were gone.

By the 1990s, CBS had become a broadcasting giant. However, in 1999, entertainment conglomerateViacom, which had been created by CBS in 1952 asCBS Television Film Sales to syndicate old CBS series and was eventually spun off under the Viacom name in 1971, announced it was taking over its former parent in a deal valued at $37 billion. Completed on April 26, 2000, upon which Viacom became the second largest entertainment company in the world. Incidentally, Viacom had purchased Paramount Pictures, which had once invested in CBS, in 1994.

Having assembled all the elements of a communications empire, Viacom found that the promised synergy was not there. As such, in 2005, Viacom announced it would split the company into two separately operated but commonly controlled entities,^[161] with CBS becoming the center of CBS Corporation. As the legal successor to the old Viacom, the company's properties included the broadcasting entities (CBS andUPN, the latter of which later merged withTime Warner-ownedWB to form the CW; the Viacom Television Stations Group, which becameCBS Television Stations; and CBS Radio);Paramount Television's production operations (now known asCBS Studios); Viacom Outdoor advertising (renamedCBS Outdoor);Showtime Networks;Simon & Schuster; andParamount Parks, which the company sold on June 30, 2006 toCedar Fair. The other company, which retained the Viacom name, kept Paramount Pictures, assortedMTV Networks,BET Networks, andFamous Music, the last of which was sold toSony/ATV Music Publishing in May 2007.

As a result of the Viacom/CBS corporate split and other recent acquisitions, CBS (under the moniker CBS Studios) owns a massive film and television library spanning nine decades. These include acquired material from Viacom and CBS in-house productions and network programs, as well as programs produced by Paramount and others originally aired on competing networks such as ABC and NBC. Series and other material in this library includeI Love Lucy,The Honeymooners,The Twilight Zone,Hawaii Five-O (both the original and current remake),Gunsmoke,The Fugitive,The Love Boat,Little House on the Prairie (U.S. television rights only),Cheers,Becker,Family Ties,Happy Days and its spin-offs,The Brady Bunch,Star Trek,The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (distribution rights on behalf of copyright holderLucasfilm),Evening Shade,Duckman,CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its spin-offs, the CBS theatrical library (includingMy Fair Lady andScrooge),Judge Judy,Judge Joe Brown,Judge Mills Lane, and the entireTerrytoons library from 1930 forward.

Paramount Global was owned by National Amusements, the Sumner Redstone-owned company that controlled the original Viacom prior to the split.Paramount Home Entertainment continues to handle DVD and Blu-ray distribution for the CBS library.

In August 2019, Viacom and CBS reunited as ViacomCBS to invest in more films and television and to become a bigger player in the growing business of streaming video. The deal was completed on December 4, 2019. Paramount Global has a combined library with over 140,000 television episodes and 3,600 film titles, including theStar Trek andMission: Impossible franchises.^[162]

• CBS
• 1950s in American television
• 1960s in American television
• 1970s in American television
• 1980s in American television
• 1990s in American television
• 2000s in American television
• 2010s in American television
• 2020s in American television
• History of television in the United States
• History of television channels

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2025
• All articles containing potentially dated statements
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2009
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2008