It started as a radio network in 1928. The name was the Columbia Broadcasting System. William S. Paley ran it. He had a simple idea that would change media forever. Give programming to stations for free. Make those stations air sponsored shows. In return, they gave him ad revenue.
The strategy worked. Fast.
Paley took 22 stations. Ten years later, he had 114. The 1940s saw massive ratings spikes. Fred Allen was funny. Bing Crosby was smooth. Kate Smith was beloved. Audiences tuned in.
Then came television. The network didn’t just survive the shift. It dominated. Jack Benny. Ed Sullivan. Lucille Ball. Carol Burnett. Mary Tyler Moore. And Walter Cronkite. When news needed to be trusted, people watched CBS. By the 1970s, it was the king of the airwaves.
But empires get complex.
In the 1960s, executives thought they could do everything. Publishing. Toys. Diversify or die, right? Wrong. Most of those ventures failed. One succeeded. Columbia Records. It became a cash cow. Eventually, the company sold off the non-broadcasting junk in 1985. Back to basics.
That didn’t stop the decline. Ratings dropped. Station numbers shrank. The market was changing. Cable was rising. By 1995, CBS was sold to Westinghouse Electric Corp.
Westinghouse renamed itself CBS Corporation. Then Viacom bought it in 2000. Six years later, regulators forced a split. CBS stood alone again. Then, in 2019, they merged back together. ViacomCBS.
The name changed again in 2022. Paramount Global.
Now, the story gets bigger. In 2025, CBS became the flagship of a new entity. Paramount Skydance Corporation. The deal was worth $8 billion. A massive merger with Skydance Media. George Cheeks stayed on as president and CEO.
So where does that leave CBS? Still the network that started it all. Still navigating a media landscape that looks nothing like the 1950s. The names change. The owners change. The technology changes. But the question remains the same. How do you keep audiences watching when everything else is shifting beneath your feet?
The answer isn’t in the history books. It’s in what happens next.
