William S. Paley and the Birth of CBS

Having paid tribute to David Sarnoff and the founding of the NBC empire, in the name of equal time today we give a respectful nod to William S. Paley, honcho of CBS (1901-1990).

Paley’s millionaire dad Samuel had acquired a few stations in 1927 to help hawk the cigars he manufactured and sold, including the family brand, La Palina. (Coincidentally, Oscar Hammerstein had also started his entertainment empire as a cigar maker). William was the VP designated to oversee this aspect of family operations. An early project was a local Philadelphia show called The La Palina Hour. In short order Paley had acquired a majority stock in the nascent network, and rapidly began acquiring more stations. (More on the formation of the company and the evolution of the Columbia brand here).

Paley rapidly realized that the value of the stations wasn’t just in promoting his dad’s cigars. As with newspaper and magazine publishing, the real revenue stream with this new creation, a broadcast network, would be through ad sales. THAT was what the business was. And to attract advertisers you needed quality programming. He also realized something that had not been automatically apparent in those early days — that you could provide the same programming uniformly to all the stations in the network, thus ensuring both a base level of quality advertisers could rely on, along with a wide reach.

In 1932, Paley married Dorothy Hart Hearst, former daughter-in-law of William Randolph, whose social connections (including ties to the Roosevelt administration) helped Paley even further. Entertainment programs and sponsors tended to hop back and forth between the networks in those days, but CBS’s news division became the crown jewel of the empire from the late ’30s through World War Two under the leadership of Frank Stanton, with the reportage of Lowell Thomas, Edward R. Murrow, William Shirer, Eric Sevaried, Howard K. Smith, and others. It’s leadership in the film would last throughout the era of the Big Three.

Paley married his second wife, magazine editor and socialite Barbara “Babe” Cushing in 1947, just as television was about to take off. (We will have occasion to refer to her again in a few days; she was amongTruman Capote’s famous “Swans”, recently immortalized in the latest season of Feud). CBS Television was a leader in variety television, a particular interest of this correspondence: Ed Sullivan (with whom he shared a birthday), Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, and Lucille Ball all had their shows on the network in the ’50s and beyond. The news division had 60 Minutes, Person to Person, et al. It was during this era that it acquired the nickname “The Tiffany Network”. In the early ’70s came the famous Rural Purge which I wrote about here, where CBS’s entire slate of rural and family oriented programming was rapidly replaced by edgier, hipper shows from the likes of Norman Lear and MTM Enterprises.

A digression, but not irrelevant. Paley was a major art collector and in 1962 he became president of the board of MOMA. It ties back in because surely this experience in the world of philanthropy surely played a role in his creation in 1976 of the Museum of Broadcasting (now known as the Paley Center for Media) in NYC. This wonderful institution was a major resource for yours truly when I was working on my first book No Applause, as I sought rare clips of vaudeville vets in early TV, and examples of variety television from before my time. I spent many a joyful hour in their library and screening rooms (this was before such things as Youtube). As I work on my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety I know I’ll have cause to rely on that wonderful archive once again.

Years ago it was also my privilege to work elbow to elbow with Mr. Paley’s daughter-in-law Valerie at the New-York Historical Society.Dr. Valerie Paley’s current title is “senior vice president and the Sue Ann Weinberg Director of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at the New-York Historical Society”. (Philanthropy and academia could take a lesson or two from the corporate world when it comes to brevity in branding.)

For more about show business historyconsult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.