CBS Group

Overview

This page deals with the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network and CBS Corporation.

Early history

At its height the group encompassed radio and television broadcasting, book and music

publishing, sound recordings, a sports team and a toy company.

It dates from the 1920s, when the Paley family under William Paley (1901-1990) invested

profits from its La Palina cigar business in one of the first US commercial radio stations.

As radio took off the group absorbed the independent Columbia Record company, which dated

from the 1880s, and moved into network television. Diversification was led by Frank Stanton

(1908-2006), the executive responsible for day to day operation of the group.

By the sixties (in retrospect the golden years of the three US networks) CBS embraced -

radio stations
television stations
television production
record labels
music recording studios
record pressing plants and an international distribution operation
music publishing
the Columbia Record & Tape Club
retailing operations (the Pacific Stereo and Discount Records chains)
musical instrument manufacturing (Fender Guitars, Rhodes Pianos, and Rogers Drums)
consumer electronics (hi-fi speakers, televisions)
book publishing (Holt Rinehart Winston)
magazine publishing
sports (New York Yankees baseball team).

CBS-Sony Records was founded in Japan as a joint venture with Sony in 1968. Sony went on to

acquire CBS Records for US$2 billion in 1988, moving its broader record interests into a

joint venture with Bertelsmann in 2004. Tri-Star Pictures was formed by CBS, HBO (Home Box

Office) and the unrelated Hollywood major Columbia Pictures in 1982.

During 1985, as performance lagged, broadcaster Ted Turner, politician Jesse Helms and

speculator Ivan Boesky all made unsuccessful bids for CBS. A year later the Loews cigarette,

tobacco, cinema and insurance conglomerate acquired a 25% stake in CBS and dismantling of

the group accelerated. Its book publishing arm and music publishing arms were sold for

US$625 million, followed by CBS Records.

Electrical manufacturer and broadcaster Westinghouse Electric acquired CBS in 1995, absorbed

the Infinity radio broadcasting and outdoor advertising group for US$4.7 billion and then

changed its name to CBS (selling off traditional Westinghouse operations such as

power-generation equipment and light bulb manufacturing).

Reflecting increasing concentration among US radio broadcasters, the new CBS acquired the

American Radio Systems chain for US$2.6 billion in 1997 (selling 17% of Infinity

Broadcasting for US$2.9 billion a year later) and engulfed television program syndicator

King World Productions.

Infinity spent US$8.7 billion buying billboard giant Outdoor Systems in 1999. Infinity's

aggregate exposure was around 17,000 billboards, posters, and transit displays in 150

metropolitan markets in North America and transit advertising in the EU, including exclusive

rights in the London Underground and extensive bus advertising interests in the UK and Eire.

In 1999 CBS was acquired by Viacom, discussed in more detail elsewhere on this site, for

US$50 billion.

A chronology for CBS is here.

Reappearance of CBS

In 2005 Viacom, whether because of a lagging share price or picque, spun off its

broadcasting, publishing and theme park interests as CBS Corporation.

At that time CBS Television Network included over 200 affiliated stations. The Viacom

Television Stations Group consists of 34 television stations reaching 15 of the top 20

television markets in the US, through 16 owned-&-operated CBS stations and 18 UPN-affiliated

stations. It included duopolies in six major markets, with CBS and UPN stations in

Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, and Pittsburgh.

Infinity Broadcasting was one of the largest radio broadcasters in the United States, where

it owned and operated over 180 radio stations. Infinity's outdoor advertising units,

Infinity Outdoor and TDI Worldwide, comprised one of the two largest outdoor advertising

operations in the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Simon & Schuster comprised 38 trade, mass market, children's and new media imprints.

Paramount Parks Inc was one of the largest theme park operators, garnering around 13 million

visitors annually at its five North American parks. Cedar Fair agreed to buy Paramount Parks

for US$1.24bn in 2006.

Studies

William Paley stars in Sally Bedell Smith's breathless In All His Glory: The Legendary

Tycoon & His Brilliant Circle (New York: Simon & Schuster 1990) - enough said - and the less

awe-struck Empire: William S Paley & The Making of CBS (New York: St Martins 1987) by Lewis

Paper.

The Sisters: Babe Mortimer Paley, Betsey Roosevelt Whitney & Minnie Astor Fosburgh: The Life

& Times of the Fabulous Cushing Sisters (New York: Random 1992) by David Grafton offers

another perspective. Paley's As It Happened: A Memoir (New York, Doubleday 1979) is bland

and for us ego-ridden.

David Halberstam's The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf 1979) is a far more intelligent

picture of the Washington Post, CBS, New York Times and LA Times at the peak of the

'television age'. There is an insider's account in Richard Salant's valuable Salant, CBS and

the Battle for the Soul of Broadcast Journalism: The Memoirs of Richard S. Salant (Boulder:

Westview 2004) edited by Susan & Bill Buzenberg

Ken Auletta's Three Blind Mice: How The Television Networks Lost Their Way (New York: Random

House 1991) gives a picture of 'old media in crisis' as the businesses and consumers first

started to head onto the information highway. It is deeper and more original than the

disappointing collection of profiles in his The Highwaymen - Warriors of the Information

Superhighway (New York: Random 1997). The King of Cash: The Inside Story of Laurence Tisch

(New York: Wiley 1995) is a pedestrian account by Christopher Winans of former CBS chair and

cigarette mogul Tisch.

William Boddy's 'Building the World's Largest Advertising Medium: CBS and Television

1940-60' in Hollywood In The Age of Television (Boston: Unwin Hyman 1990) edited by Tino

Balio, Les Brown's Television: The Business Behind the Box (New York (Harcourt Brace 1971)

and Robert Metz's CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye (New York: NAL 75) are of value for

the network's middle years. They are more incisive than Robert Slater's This ... is CBS

(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall 1988) or Peter Boyer's Who Killed CBS: The Undoing of

America's Number One News Network (New York: Random 1988). Overviews of the US networks and

broadcasting are highlighted here on the Caslon Analytics site.

For CBS News see Herbert Gans's sprightly Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News,

NBC Nightly News, Newsweek and Time (New York: Pantheon 1979), Fred Friendly's Due to

Circumstances Beyond Our Control (New York: Random 1968), Bill Leonard's In The Storm of the

Eye: A Lifetime at CBS (New York: Putnam 1987), Peter McCabe's Bad News At Black Rock: The

Sell-out Of CBS News (New York: Arbor House 1987), Manes Sperber's Murrow: His Life & Times

(New York: Freundlich 1987) and Gary Gates's thinner Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News

(New York: Harper & Row 1978). Bernard Goldberg's Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media

Distort the News (New York: Regnery 2001) struck us as somewhat tendentious but has won

praise elsewhere.

Douglas Gomery's 'Rethinking Television History' in Television Histories: Shaping Collective

Memory in the Media Age (Lexington: Uni Press of Kentucky 2001) edited by Gary Edgerton &

Peter Rollins is of particular value.

For Columbia Records see the discussion on the Caslon Analytics site and Tim Brooks'

Columbia Records in the 1890s: Founding the Record Industry (in the Association for Recorded

Sound Journal of 1978), Norman Lebrecht's When The Music Stops (New York: Simon & Schuster

1996), Fredric Dannen's Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside The Music Business (New

York: Vintage 1991), Tom King's David Geffen: A Biography Of New Hollywood (London:

Hutchinson 2000) and Jory Farr's overheated Moguls & Madmen: The Pursuit of Power in Popular

Music (New York: Simon & Schuster 1994).

Peter Goldmark's Maverick Inventor: My Turbulent Years at CBS (New York: Saturday Review

Press 1973) is a memoir by the under-appreciated wizard.

Oral histories of Frank Stanton are here and here.

CBS Group

Overview

Early history

Reappearance of CBS

Studies

Media Directory