Cbs Evening News example essay topic

The Columbia Broadcasting Company or "CBS" in layman's terms was founded in 1927 as a radio network under the "United Independent Broadcasters" name, which was a radio-broadcasting network. The name was changed to CBS in 1928, which was the same year that William S. Paley, the son of a cigar making tycoon, took over control of CBS with his fathers financial support. Paley took over CBS for $400,000 and inherited a network that consisted of 22 affiliates and 16 employees. Although he had little technical knowledge of radio, Paley believed he could only attract advertisers if he delivered large audiences. To fulfill this goal, he decided to give CBS programming to local radio stations for free, as long as they agreed to surrender any part of their schedule to advertiser sponsored CBS network shows. In less than a decade, CBS had blossomed to 114 stations from 22 when Paley took over.

Another one of Paley's gifts was his ability to recognize talent, he quickly signed mega stars such as Bing Crosby, Kate Smith and Morton Downey. But such was the case in those days, those stars were quickly lured away by highly popular rival NBC for more money. However, all was not lost for the young Paley. What he lost in stars he got back in news coverage. Don't forget I'm still talking radio here.

Paley hired Edward Klauber, a former New York Times editor and Paul White who was a former United Press reporter, they began to build a solid news division at CBS. "CBS News" really didn't come together until Klauber hired some guy you probably never heard of by the name of Edward Murrow. Klauber assigned Murrow to London as director of the European talks. In March of 1937, before the start of the Great War, Murrow teamed with William S hirer to report on "Anschluss". These reports formed the foundation for what would become "The CBS World News Roundup" which, during World War II Murrow assembled a great team of reporters commonly referred to as "Murrow's Boys" who consisted of Eric Seva reid, Charles Collingwood, Howard Smith, Winston Burdett, Richard Hot telet and Larry Le Sueur.

Murrow would end up reporting on and airing one of the greatest accounts of his experiences and descriptions of touring the Nazi concentration camps, which we heard in class. Meanwhile back in the states, by the time that the war had ended, television was starting to get important as the networks looked toward the future and they were eager to get all the stars and ratings they could get their hands on. As payback to NBC for stealing all of their radio stars in the '30's, Paley figured he could get all of his old stars back and more by paying them more than NBC could ever think of. He would accomplish this by "subcontracting" them.

This saved him millions in taxes he would have owed the federal government. In this "Great Talent Raid" Paley convinced the likes of Jack Benny, Amos & Andy, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason to come and work for CBS, which they did, because the money was there. CBS also distanced itself from NBC when the CBS research center led by Peter Gold mark, developed the long playing phonograph recording technique and color television. In 1946 Paley hired Dr. Frank Stanton to be president of CBS with the hopes he would increase CBS' broadcasting presence. Frighteningly aware of how fast television was expanding, Paley began increasing CBS investments in television programming. With the stars he raided from NBC, and CBS original shows such as I love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, Arthur Godfrey and Gunsmoke, CBS was the ratings leader for almost 20 years.

Unfortunately, fame has a price. The 1950's were the peak of the Cold War and the "Red Scare" in America. Led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy he set out to cleanse the country of all the communists who infiltrated into American society to destroy the American way of life - or so they said. Anyway, this got serious with all the blacklisting, the trials involving Hollywood actors, AWARE, HUA C, all of the "Red Channels" with more than 300 names on it.

It got so bad at one point that CBS was referred to as the "Communist Broadcasting System". The Network itself got caught up in all the Communism mumbo-jumbo by requiring loyalty oaths from all of it's employees, and hiring a former member of the FBI to head it's "loyalty clearance office"; I'm serious here. McCarthy seemed to have the country in his hands when he went too far in an action that would prove to be the beginning of the end for Mr. McCarthy. What did he do you may ask? He accused Edward Murrow, today's equivalent of um... well, I don't think anyone compares to Murrow (but you might be able to compare him to Tom Brokaw in name recognition only) to being a communist. Once word got to Murrow he decided to do something that hadn't been done with McCarthy yet, he invited the Senator on his "See it now" program to explain to the country how much of a communist Murrow and other Americans are.

After McCarthy was finished screaming and yelling at the camera most Americans figured he was crazy and know longer paid attention to him. Murrow looked like a genius to most people except his CBS executives, and a few years later in 1961 resigned to head the United States Information Agency. If CBS put any energy into anything it was the news. CBS news proved to be the foundation of the whole company. This strong base was needed as CBS was in the middle of a quiz show scandal. It was also becoming more and more apparent that Paley was starting to be more concerned with making profits his number one priority.

A strong example of this was in 1966 when Paley chose to air reruns of I Love Lucy instead of the Senate Judiciary Hearings on Vietnam. Before I forget and leave out one of the most important events in CBS News broadcast history. Let's not forget that CBS news further distanced itself as the number one news leader with its commercial free coverage of the Kennedy assignation from Nov. 22-25 1963. This put Walter Cronkite on the map since Murrow had resigned just two years earlier. More problems arose in the executive offices when major sixties hits such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction despite critical disdain, were replaced by an abrupt shift in programming by executives Robert Wood and Fred Silverman to more urban themed shows such as All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and MASH. However these shows would go on to become cultural smashes and still to this day, the final episode of Mash remains the single greatest rating ever.

These shows became so popular that CBS revenue soared and by 1974 CBS became CBS Inc. They not only were a radio and television corporation but also a publishing division (Holt, Reinhart and Winston), a magazine division (Woman's Day) a recording division (Columbia Records, which later became CBS records) and they even owned the New York Yankees from 1964-1973! Even through all of the success they were having, the question in the back of all the executives minds was who was going to succeed Paley. Paley however refused to retire which was going against his own rule, let's remember that all decisions had to go through him no matter how minute the topic. He did however in 1973 force the retirement of his would be successor, Frank Stanton.

He then also forced the resignations of other CBS chief executives Arthur Taylor, John Back, and Thomas Wyman. This led to bad PR for CBS and falling ratings left the company vulnerable. Ted turner tried to buy CBS in the early '80's which led to their biggest shareholder, Lawrence Tisch becoming president and CEO in 1986. Under Tisch's rule CBS began to crumble. He slashed jobs and cut most of CBS' assets such as the magazine and recording divisions. Dan Rather, the host of the CBS Evening News after Cronkite left, led the ratings for over 20 years wrote a hate filled editorial in the New York Time titled "From Murrow To Mediocrity" in 1981.

When Paley died in 1990, The CBS Evening News had fallen to third in the ratings. They got a brief bounce from the CBS Olympics coverage in 1993. CBS also got David Letterman's "Late Show from NBC in 1993. They also lost 12 affiliates and were outbid by FOX for NFL games and rumors began to swirl that CBS was up for sale. In November of 1995 CBS was sold to Westinghouse for over $5 billion, this ended CBS' run as an independent company. After the Westinghouse purchase, things started to turn in the other direction for the troubled CBS network.

In 1997 Westinghouse bought Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, which was one of the largest owners of radio stations in the U.S... Westinghouse also changed it's name to "CBS Corporation" in '97 and moved to New York from Pittsburgh. In '98 they purchased American Radio Systems Corporation which owned and operated 90 stations around the country and also purchased King World Production. In 1999 CBS won back it's NFL rights from NBC and began to televise AFC games for the first time in nearly seven years. This was a major victory since they were about to lose a major NASCAR contract to FOX and NBC.

In 1999 in a $37 billion deal, Viacom Inc. purchased CBS and made it the second largest entertainment company in the world. In recent years CBS has made a major comeback. Although the historical CBS Evening News remains in the bottom of network newscasts, CBS has dominated the ratings with such hits as "Survivor", "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the popular "CSI" series. CBS now boasts itself as "America's Most Watched Network" and they should be proud of that especially with all that they have been through in their history..