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It started off as a radio network, but it currently one of united states major television network. The name happens to be derived from its former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The shape of the company's logo has made the company have another name “Eye Network.” Owing to its high quality programming, the company has also earned itself another name referred to as the Tiffany network. The owner of the station is said to have bought some sixteen radio stations way back in nineteen twenty eight, which were renamed the Columbia broadcasting system. Under the owner's guidance, CBS was to first become one of America's greatest radio networks, before finally joining the ranks of the three top television stations.
1974 marked a new beginning for the company, and it dropped its name and adopted CBS, Inc. In nineteen thirty, CBS launched its own news division, and this was after it had turned down an Associated Press news franchise. The station's reputation for on the spot coverage was built way back during the London Blitz dark days, and this was as a result of it’s on the spot coverage. A leading news editor assembled a team of qualified news reporters, and these were responsible for seeing to it that the company was catapulted to the top of the table in line with other companies.
In nineteen thirty eight, CBS listeners were treated to a rare broadcast, one which led them into believing that aliens were invading the earth. The broadcast was referred as the war of the worlds, and what led people into believing the contents was nothing more other than its unique format. This was even after three disclaimers in the program, which declared it the work of fiction. Later on in the nineteen nineties, CBS reviewed the program, and this time round it was in form of television format. The television format showed asteroids crashing on earth, but here disclaimers were aired at each commercial break.
In the nineteen fifties and sixties era, CBS programs were usually top rated, and it literally dominated broadcasting. Before it began creating its own programs, CBS would allocate advertising agencies half or full hour blocks, for which they would come up with advertisements. Soon after, in the mid nineteen forties, CBS began creating its own programs, something that eventually led to the advertiser’s time being clipped, to the extent where they were required to pay for airtime per minute. As late as nineteen fifty, radio continued to be CBS's backbone, as it only owned a single television station.
Television started to gradually take shape, and what was witnessed was a shift by the radio stars into television, and they brought with them some radio programs as well. For instance, what used to be a radio program, the Guiding light, was brought over to TV during this great migration, and it went on to be aired till 2009. In nineteen fifty six, the CBS management was quick to pint out that radio had lost money, while TV on the other hand had made money. This clearly went out to spell where the future of the company lay. This came to pass in nineteen sixty two, when curtains fell on what used to be some of radio's most famous shows.
When starting, television broadcasts were often experimental, and this was attributed to by the fact that there were hourly broadcasts each day. Furthermore, the radius of broadcast was quite limited, and it involved areas in and around New York. To be able to match up with some of the competitors in the market, CBS brought in color and immediately set out to improve production quality. Owing to allegiance which played out during the licensing process, CBS found itself on the receiving end soon after its technology was rejected by the market regulator. This was further worsened by the start of the second world war, which saw commercial television broadcasting hit a dead end.
But soon after, it started picking up again, but this did not also work well for CBS. They still lagged behind and it was until the nineteen fifties when the company started recording some improvement since this was the time when the use of black and white technology was widespread. When expanding, CBS was known to buy other networks, and if they happened to be radio station programs, they would remodel them into TV format. But there was one radio personality who declined to move her show to TV, giving the condition that it would only happen when her real husband was made part of the cast of her “My Favorite husband” show.
Late in the nineteen forties, CBS offered the first live broadcast of the United Nations General Assembly of nineteen forty nine. This marked one of the triumphs of CBS as a television empire. It went on to dominate the television sector as it had done radio, and in nineteen fifty three it recorded its first profit. Between nineteen fifty five to nineteen seventy six, CBS television network would become a household name, something that was achieved due to the market dominance on that whole time. When it came to ratings, the network often controlled almost six of the top ten slots back in the day, owing to its incredible shows.
It was not until the mid nineteen eighties that CBS was to bump out of the top slots due to the entry of ABC. One of the main reasons attributed to this was that the monopoly that they enjoyed in the earlier years had given them the courage to gamble with some other unpopular programs. There happened to be one of the shows broadcast on this network which happened to be received well by viewers, M*A*S*H, and this is evident from the fact that the program was able to be aired to nearly one hundred and six million Americans during its final episode, which was two and a half hours long. It proved to be the history in the making in the American television industry, a record which was broken again by CBS during the broadcast of the super bowl this year.
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