Speaker 1: For more than ninety years, CBS, a front runner in
Speaker 1: the broadcast arena, has been keeping its eye on the
Speaker 1: world of changing media. But somewhere along the line, they
Speaker 1: lost sight of what emerging markets wanted to watch, missing
Speaker 1: the news that they needed to appeal to younger viewers.
Speaker 1: So in the mid ninety nineties, they hired someone who
Speaker 1: seemingly could guess programming trends before they even happened, to
Speaker 1: revitalize the station, and that someone would send CBS, at
Speaker 1: least for a good while, over the brink and bang
Speaker 1: zoom to the moon. This is CBS on the brink.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to say that, Ariel, that's nice. Yeah, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan and I'm Ariel. And in case you didn't
Speaker 1: get the bank Zoom, that's from the Honeymooners, which premiered
Speaker 1: on CBS and along with their prestigious television shows like
Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory and Murphy Brown and Murphy Brown. And
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about TVs and stuff. But before
Speaker 1: we jump into that, we're in a different age than
Speaker 1: we were. When I was growing up, there were only
Speaker 1: the three broadcast stations, and then there were some local channels.
Speaker 1: You used your little Bunny Ears to watch them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also my antenna sometimes, but I would try and
Speaker 1: tune into that kind of stuff. I did get cable,
Speaker 1: Like cable existed when I was a little kid, It's
Speaker 1: just my family didn't have it. Until maybe I was
Speaker 1: seven or eight. We got cable that opened up a
Speaker 1: bunch of more channels, but you still had the three
Speaker 1: big broadcast stations. It wouldn't be for many years after
Speaker 1: word that we would say that there are four broadcast stations. Right.
Speaker 1: But today is very different than when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: So keeping in mind that today is a very different landscape,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, how do you watch television or do you
Speaker 1: watch TV? Well? I do enjoy television. I am a
Speaker 1: self proclaimed giant geek, and so I like watching all
Speaker 1: of the geeky things that come out and then not
Speaker 1: geeky things. I watched antenna type television growing up and
Speaker 1: occasionally cable. I have cable now actually because I like
Speaker 1: watching the shows when they come out without spoilers. And
Speaker 1: sometimes there are channels that I just can't get on
Speaker 1: Hulu or Netflix, or shows that I can't watch in arrears,
Speaker 1: so I do have cable. I also like watching the
Speaker 1: occasional football or hockey game, and that's easier on cable.
Speaker 1: But I also have Netflix and Amazon and probably the
Speaker 1: Disney Service, and I have Cable. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: the last time I watched it. I honestly don't remember
Speaker 1: the last time I turned on cable TV. I have
Speaker 1: it because it's bundled, and so I tend to watch
Speaker 1: things online. And honestly, these days, I don't watch that
Speaker 1: much television programming at all. I'm watching a lot of
Speaker 1: like independent YouTube type video stuff, um, like highly produced
Speaker 1: YouTube stuff. It's not like I'm watching some guy throw
Speaker 1: darts at balloons for minutes. But I'll watch Twitch for
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, I do watch some Twitch programming as well.
Speaker 1: So it's a very different world. But CBS obviously is
Speaker 1: steeped in the traditional forms of media, although they've obviously
Speaker 1: also expanded beyond that. So we're gonna give a quick
Speaker 1: overview of CBS origins because I find them fascinating to
Speaker 1: do too. Let's let's set our minds back, all right,
Speaker 1: just before I'm going to go through this as fast
Speaker 1: as I can. But I'm also really a geek out
Speaker 1: about this. Before World War One, you had radio, just
Speaker 1: starting to get started in the United States, like you
Speaker 1: started to have radio broadcast stations just barely begin just
Speaker 1: before World War One. World War one starts to break out,
Speaker 1: and the United States government kind of flips its lid
Speaker 1: because a lot of the companies that we're running those
Speaker 1: radio broadcast stations, which were mostly for the use of
Speaker 1: sending telegrams wirelessly, a lot of them were owned by
Speaker 1: overseas companies, companies in Europe. Interesting, and the government is saying, huh,
Speaker 1: don't really want this foreign owned company to have such
Speaker 1: an important role in our communications infrastructures. So what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do is sees all the companies, and they did.
Speaker 1: World War One ends and they said, well, now we've
Speaker 1: got all these radio broadcast towers that we can't use anymore.
Speaker 1: We need to get rid of them. So the government
Speaker 1: turns to a group of companies, including General Electric being
Speaker 1: the largest of them, to create a new corporation, the
Speaker 1: Radio Corporation of America, better known as r c A.
Speaker 1: R c a's job is to oversee all these radio stations,
Speaker 1: which gradually evolve into broadcast radio as we would think
Speaker 1: of it today. All right, So it becomes broadcast radio
Speaker 1: and our c A as part of this, decides to
Speaker 1: create its own subsidiary to oversee this, the National Broadcast
Speaker 1: Company or in BC. It's important to remember the NBC
Speaker 1: plays an integral role in the formation of CBS because
Speaker 1: along comes a talent agent. He's got a heck of
Speaker 1: an act to show you, I can't this podcast. So
Speaker 1: this guy named Arthur Judson is pitching his clients to
Speaker 1: NBC and he's getting nowhere. So what do you do
Speaker 1: when you can't get your clients booked on the radio station?
Speaker 1: You cry in a corner. No, you make a new
Speaker 1: radio station. In fact, you make a new chain of
Speaker 1: radio stations. In fact, you get your own radio network.
Speaker 1: And that's what he did. He started to go out
Speaker 1: and try and form his own radio network. Uh. It
Speaker 1: started off as the United Independent Broadcasters, but not too
Speaker 1: long after he founded that. In ninety seven, he agreed
Speaker 1: to a merger with Columbia Phonograph and Records Company and
Speaker 1: this would become CBS. This happened in nineteen It became
Speaker 1: known as the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting Company and the company struggled.
Speaker 1: It was it was up against a behemoth because NBC
Speaker 1: had this bigger company, our c A and behind that
Speaker 1: General Electric. Right, so NBC has this huge safety net
Speaker 1: behind it. CBS doesn't. It's independent, it's struggling. So then
Speaker 1: this wealthy guy named william S. Paley comes in, um
Speaker 1: and he says, you know what, I think I can
Speaker 1: do something with this this broadcast company. And his father
Speaker 1: had been a very successful businessman, you could say it
Speaker 1: was something of a lifesaver. And he comes in and
Speaker 1: he buys this struggling company, calls it the Columbia Broadcasting
Speaker 1: System or CBS proper so much better than CPBC. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this was the formation of CBS. But at the
Speaker 1: time we have to remember CBS was a radio network.
Speaker 1: Television comes later, and NBC was too, exactly, and so
Speaker 1: then we get into another big change, a big difference
Speaker 1: between CBS and NBC. The guy who was overseeing NBC
Speaker 1: thought that advertising was gosh. He didn't like it. That
Speaker 1: was foolish of him. Yeah, he actually there were famous
Speaker 1: stories that he would refuse to meet with advertising executives.
Speaker 1: He would let his his direct reports handle that for
Speaker 1: him because he hated it. Hailey was the opposite, and
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm gonna wine and dine these guys
Speaker 1: so that they advertise on my shows. In fact, I'm
Speaker 1: going to convince them to sponsor entire shows and we
Speaker 1: will feature their products either in every advertising break or
Speaker 1: we'll incorporate them directly into the scripts. You know, Wow,
Speaker 1: you sure do look nice wearing that dapper dan hair
Speaker 1: hair wellmade? Yeah, which is that you should write commercials? John? Yeah,
Speaker 1: not not my strong suit, I admit it. I bet
Speaker 1: that made NBC pretty mad though. Yeah, they got into
Speaker 1: a fierce rivalry, and that wouldn't be the only thing
Speaker 1: that CBS would do that would make NBC mad. But
Speaker 1: there also was an interesting side note to this, which
Speaker 1: just very quickly, is that CBS and NBC were the
Speaker 1: dominant players in radio. There was no one else, to
Speaker 1: the point where another organization called the Mutual Broadcasting System
Speaker 1: filed a complaint with the f c C, the Federal
Speaker 1: Communications Commission in the United States, and said, this is
Speaker 1: a do woppoli. These two companies control everything. That's not acceptable.
Speaker 1: So FCC says, you know what, you're right, NBC, you
Speaker 1: guys split into two. Now, NBC already had two networks,
Speaker 1: both called NBC. So they said, well, all right, we'll
Speaker 1: sell off one of these and we'll keep the other one,
Speaker 1: and the one they sold off would eventually become the
Speaker 1: American Broadcast Company or ABC. So now you get all
Speaker 1: three of the big broadcast companies, and you could argue
Speaker 1: that all three, either directly or indirectly came out of
Speaker 1: our c A and just get excited about No, that's
Speaker 1: very exciting, it's very very interesting. As you said, advertising
Speaker 1: isn't the only thing that caused a sore spot between
Speaker 1: NBC and CBS because CBS stole a bunch of talent
Speaker 1: away from NBC. Yeah, they did a whole head hunting thing.
Speaker 1: Paley led the charge, and they offered NBC stars deal
Speaker 1: they couldn't refuse. They gave them such lucrative contracts that
Speaker 1: multiple NBC stars jumped ship. And this was right around
Speaker 1: the same time that the industry was starting to embrace television.
Speaker 1: So they got icons like Jack Benny and George Burns
Speaker 1: to come over to CBS. Really good timing on their part, yep,
Speaker 1: and uh, the rivalry between the two companies went beyond that. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dwell too much on there, but
Speaker 1: you had our c A and in BC backing certain
Speaker 1: types of media, whereas CBS and Columbia Records were backing
Speaker 1: other types of media. You had CBS put forward it's
Speaker 1: standard for color television and it got accepted as the
Speaker 1: FCC standard, while our c A was saying, not so fast,
Speaker 1: our versions better, and the FCC said, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're right, We're gonna reverse our decision. So this was
Speaker 1: a battle going back and forth in those early days,
Speaker 1: but both companies were largely thriving off that competition. The Again,
Speaker 1: the interesting part being that CBS was doing this as
Speaker 1: an independent company. It wasn't, it wasn't under the umbrella
Speaker 1: of a larger corporation. But you know, they had trouble
Speaker 1: making their TVs around the time of the Korean War
Speaker 1: and just gave up on it and focused on television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because their television. And I won't go into the details
Speaker 1: of this either, but it was a electro mechanical color TV,
Speaker 1: meaning that there were actually moving parts inside your television
Speaker 1: to make the color work, like little elves On treadmill, well,
Speaker 1: like a color wheel. But yes, it was powered by
Speaker 1: el Son tre and mills. Same thing. Well. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, as a part of focusing more on television.
Speaker 1: They come up with their CBS I logo. I like
Speaker 1: that you said, by focusing more on television, I meant
Speaker 1: to do that. Yes, I did. And then we're not
Speaker 1: going to focus on the year by year because things
Speaker 1: go pretty well for television. We're just gonna hit a
Speaker 1: few key points. Yeah, and and kind of highlight how
Speaker 1: the transition was happening. Yeah, between the years of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty and nineteen sixty two, CBS stopped offering radio serials
Speaker 1: and dramas. Yeah, they were. They were just moving away
Speaker 1: from the audio drama format, which Ariel and I both love. Yes,
Speaker 1: we have been involved with audio drama before, and we
Speaker 1: we would love to Podcasting is allowed that to come back.
Speaker 1: But this was the era where people were saying, let's
Speaker 1: move those stories over to television. Let's tell these stories
Speaker 1: in a different format. And in ninety eight we got
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. We get sixty minutes every hour the television show,
Speaker 1: right right right, the news show. You know, I knew
Speaker 1: that you did. By nineteen sixty nine, did you know
Speaker 1: that CBS had employees and was making over sixty four
Speaker 1: million dollars? I did not did not know that part.
Speaker 1: And in the next decade. In the nineteen seventies, Uh,
Speaker 1: we started seeing CBS debut shows that would end up
Speaker 1: becoming iconic. All in the Family is often thought of
Speaker 1: as one of the best sitcoms, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the best examples of the sitcom format. Ever, it broke
Speaker 1: barriers of what was acceptable and not acceptable on television.
Speaker 1: That could be a whole article in and of itself. Sure, Mash,
Speaker 1: another phenomenal series, came out in the nineteen seventies. This
Speaker 1: is obviously it's also when I was growing up, so
Speaker 1: I have a lot of fond memories of this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a little before my time, but I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: Mash and the Waltons, which were the focus of a
Speaker 1: gag I wrote for the video series that we used
Speaker 1: to do large neer drunkle later because we talked about
Speaker 1: Battle beyond the Stars. Yeah, yeah, anyway, that's neither here,
Speaker 1: no good memories. In nineteen seventy four, the company was
Speaker 1: known as CBS Incorporated. And in sony six they start
Speaker 1: seeing a troubling thing on the horizon, because that was
Speaker 1: right when the cable industry started taking off. Cable originally,
Speaker 1: by the way, was just meant to bring television signals
Speaker 1: to people who were having trouble picking them up because
Speaker 1: they were living in either remote areas or they were
Speaker 1: living in dense cities where buildings were blocking television frequencies.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't originally meant to deliver eight billion channels
Speaker 1: with nothing on them, but rather to just allow people
Speaker 1: to get those television feeds that they couldn't get over
Speaker 1: the air well. And this is part of what got
Speaker 1: CBS in trouble because they didn't view cable as a
Speaker 1: competitor and so they didn't prepare to compete with it.
Speaker 1: In eight three, CBS joints with Columbia Pictures in HBO
Speaker 1: and they make TriStar Pictures. But then CBS cells its
Speaker 1: shares to Sony two years later. Yeah, it wouldn't stick
Speaker 1: with that particular approach. And then we get a dramatic
Speaker 1: story in Ariel. I want you to take this part
Speaker 1: because you researched this part and you wrote this. I
Speaker 1: want to hear exactly what was going on here because
Speaker 1: this is the first part where we actually see internal conflict. Yes,
Speaker 1: So in Lawrence known as Larry Tish and his brother
Speaker 1: Robert Bob Tish step in and save CBS from a takeover.
Speaker 1: So TBS was trying to buy CBS. New York Times
Speaker 1: called it a takeover of corporate waters and conservative politicians.
Speaker 1: And this is interesting to me because of you know,
Speaker 1: you look at TBS, that's one of those channels that
Speaker 1: became famous for flourishing in the cable era. Like that
Speaker 1: with Cable is what gave TBS. It's incredible boost. And
Speaker 1: so like you were saying, we're CBS, Hatton really viewed
Speaker 1: Cable as a competitor and now it's directly threatening the company.
Speaker 1: We had Turner behind Ted Turner behind it. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we here in Atlanta have a lot of stories about
Speaker 1: Mr Ted Turner. Yes, So Larry and Bob use a
Speaker 1: company day own blows to buy a minority stake in CBS.
Speaker 1: They purchased of the outstanding stock of CBS for nine dollars,
Speaker 1: so just shy of a billion, and this stops TBS
Speaker 1: from being able to take over. Yeah. And also Larry
Speaker 1: is invited to join the board of directors on CBS
Speaker 1: and then would later end up being named its chief
Speaker 1: executive officer. Yes. Sadly, during his time as CEO, he
Speaker 1: sold off the record division of CBS and the publishing
Speaker 1: side and had to institute a bunch of cutbacks and
Speaker 1: cost saving measures. Now, the records in the publishing side
Speaker 1: were still the core business of CBS at that time,
Speaker 1: so they were focusing on TV, but they still yeah,
Speaker 1: the revenue generators were there parts of the business that
Speaker 1: they divested themselves of. And it was also that you
Speaker 1: could remove those concerns while concentering on the television. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people question that move if they said,
Speaker 1: they said, if those parts of the business were the
Speaker 1: parts that are making money, why were those the parts
Speaker 1: that you sold off? Yeah? Yeah, it kind of gave
Speaker 1: him a bad rap. It did, however, allow CBS to
Speaker 1: focus mainly on television programming. Yeah, but that was not
Speaker 1: something that would immediately help the company. No. In fact,
Speaker 1: CBS started seeing losses because of these changes. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about how they address those losses in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. Alright, Ariel, let's
Speaker 1: set the scene. It's okay, we've got cable that's still
Speaker 1: very much an issue. It's a growing issue. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: grown from around seven channels to thirty three, and now
Speaker 1: you're looking at a point where the cable channels are
Speaker 1: starting to become a credible threat to the long established
Speaker 1: broadcast company. Yeah. By cable channels were making revenues just
Speaker 1: a billion dollars under the Big three. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: you look at the Big three and then you look
Speaker 1: at the cable channels, now, grant you're looking collectively and collectively,
Speaker 1: but still you're starting to say, these these broadcast companies up.
Speaker 1: For the longest time, we thought of as unassailable, like
Speaker 1: they had been around for so long. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like that too big to fail mentality. And now
Speaker 1: suddenly the writing appears to be different. On the wall.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like it's too big to fail. Now
Speaker 1: it sounds like you better pay attention to this. Well.
Speaker 1: Part of what allowed cable channels to net almost as
Speaker 1: much money as the Big three is the fact that
Speaker 1: on top of getting ad money, that the broadcasting companies
Speaker 1: also were doing. Yes, they were getting subscription money, yeah,
Speaker 1: which the broadcast companies weren't doing at least at least
Speaker 1: not for another year. Yeah, but two CBS at least
Speaker 1: had one crowning achievement it could point to that was insignificant.
Speaker 1: They were the number one broadcast company in the United States.
Speaker 1: They were the first network to rise to first place
Speaker 1: in just one season. Yeah, which is pretty impressive, like
Speaker 1: being able to go uh and and claim that spot
Speaker 1: and not have it be like a super long trend
Speaker 1: to get there. Yeah. So then in ninety two the
Speaker 1: Cable Act past. This was a big deal. It was
Speaker 1: because it allowed local networks to charge carriers like Comcast
Speaker 1: for t Spectrum a retransmission fee to air their broadcasts.
Speaker 1: So this allowed local news to reach cable subscribers and
Speaker 1: things like that. But the Big Three saw this and
Speaker 1: started also requesting retransmission fees and fees from those local
Speaker 1: networks that were subsidiaries and and syndicating the Big Three programming.
Speaker 1: This ended up creating a real conflict in the television industry,
Speaker 1: and it was an expensive one actually would go all
Speaker 1: the way through the nineties and into the two thousand's
Speaker 1: and up to two thousand thirteen. Really for the next
Speaker 1: part of this particular story, we're gonna get back into
Speaker 1: the nineties in a second, But it was when CBS
Speaker 1: and Showtime stopped airing two specific key markets that time
Speaker 1: Warner Cable was servicing because they were having this fundamental
Speaker 1: disagreement of what the retransmission fees should be. CBS wanted
Speaker 1: their retransmission fees bumped up make more money, and time
Speaker 1: warners saying, I can't we if we do that for you,
Speaker 1: we have to do it for everybody when their contracts
Speaker 1: are And if we do it for everybody, then in
Speaker 1: order for us to make a profit, we have to
Speaker 1: increase the cost to the subscriber, and this customer will
Speaker 1: stop subscribing. Yeah, and you'll see a lot of cord cutters.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind that by two thousand thirteen, you're
Speaker 1: starting to see the early trends of cord cutting already. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At that time, reach transmission fees were already about three
Speaker 1: billion dollars. So it's a pretty big number to start with,
Speaker 1: and then to raise that is a lot. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: on top of that, you can say that this might
Speaker 1: have been an anticipation for that cord cutting trend, the
Speaker 1: idea that the Internet was now the new threat. Where
Speaker 1: cable had been the threat in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: now it was the Internet and streaming services. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: back to let's jump back to their CBS gets a
Speaker 1: big blow. They lose the NFL I guess they were
Speaker 1: no longer ready for some football. Fox took it over.
Speaker 1: At this time, Fox became the fourth network, so it
Speaker 1: was the Big four, which I remember how weird that
Speaker 1: was to me when it was happening, because throughout my
Speaker 1: childhood there are only three networks, and then you have
Speaker 1: Fox that officially becomes a network. And in large part
Speaker 1: it was when the NFL came over to Fox. There
Speaker 1: were certain things that really helped establish Fox, the Simpsons
Speaker 1: being one of them, but NFL certainly went a long way. Well,
Speaker 1: the NFL, I think is part of what was keeping
Speaker 1: CBS is younger viewership watching that channel, because outside of that,
Speaker 1: they had programs like Sixty Minutes and Murphy Brown and
Speaker 1: Murder she wrote, and Dr Quinn Medicine Women. Mind you.
Speaker 1: I love all those shows, Yes, but you're secretly fifty
Speaker 1: years old and secretly fifty years old. This was when
Speaker 1: CBS was starting to gain that reputation that this is
Speaker 1: the network that old people watch. Like that was that
Speaker 1: was just generally what people felt. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: the thing is advertisers key advertising ranges twenties to fifties,
Speaker 1: so you get over fifty and advertisers just aren't targeting
Speaker 1: them as much, right, Yeah, you're typically like the sweet
Speaker 1: spuzz like eighteen to thirty four. That's where you really
Speaker 1: are concentrating your advertising money typically, So when you start
Speaker 1: thinking that a channel's demographics or networks demographics are beyond that,
Speaker 1: you're far less likely to spend advertising money. So this
Speaker 1: was a perception problem that CBS really needed to address.
Speaker 1: It's very similar to another story that we covered not
Speaker 1: too long ago on the Brink. Yeah, old spice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be the You don't want to
Speaker 1: be the cologne that you're or the smell that your
Speaker 1: grandfather smells like. And you don't want to be the
Speaker 1: channel that your grandfather watches. I guess I mean unless
Speaker 1: you're me aerial secret fifty year old. Yeah, not that
Speaker 1: fifty years old by any means in my mind, But
Speaker 1: this was this was the perception. Yes, we're not judging,
Speaker 1: I'm closer to fifty than I am to thirty. So uh, Now,
Speaker 1: all of this, the drop of viewership from the NFL,
Speaker 1: the lack of younger viewers, meant that CBS needed to
Speaker 1: provide advertising spots to advertisers at less costs. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: couldn't afford or they couldn't command higher prices, so they
Speaker 1: had to start cutting how much they could ask for
Speaker 1: these advertising deals, which of course hurts the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So what do they do. Well, first, they had a
Speaker 1: couple of shows, The Nanny and Chicago Hope, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: I enjoyed. So they're still catering to the secret fifty
Speaker 1: year old. Hey, let's say Nanny is a solid forty
Speaker 1: two all right, Well, the story continues to go poorly
Speaker 1: for CBS because they actually fall to last place among
Speaker 1: the three major networks. Yeah, yeah, despite Fox being the fourth,
Speaker 1: it's still kind of not counting. Yeah, there they were.
Speaker 1: Fox kind of had this nebulous sort of descriptor as
Speaker 1: being a broadcast network. But keep in mind ninety two
Speaker 1: was when CBS had been on top, and now we're
Speaker 1: talking to ninety four and now they're in last place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and at this time Fox was starting to buy affiliates,
Speaker 1: so they're they're rampant sucking up. Yeah. CBS did make
Speaker 1: a profit that year despite being last place in the
Speaker 1: Big three, two one point six million dollars, but that
Speaker 1: that profit was not growth. That was actually they weren't
Speaker 1: profiting by as much as they had the previous year, right,
Speaker 1: because the year before they had made more than three
Speaker 1: hundred million. Yeah, well, by they were down another so
Speaker 1: by they only had one prime time night that was
Speaker 1: top in the seven nights, and that would be Saturday,
Speaker 1: when old people are staying home and everyone else knows
Speaker 1: it's all right for fighting. Yes, because of CBS's drop. However,
Speaker 1: Westinghouse Electric Corporation put out a bid to buy CBS
Speaker 1: in August of and CBS that'd sure, Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: a huge, huge shift because now you finally have this
Speaker 1: true independent or more or less true independent company that's
Speaker 1: becoming folded under another company. So CBS for so long
Speaker 1: had been standing on its own and now agrees to
Speaker 1: this acquisition. And it was for the princely sum of
Speaker 1: five point for billion dollars, which is pretty good. It's
Speaker 1: even better considering that's about eighty one dollar per cash
Speaker 1: share of stock, which the previous year stocks had gone
Speaker 1: as low as fifty dollars a year. So it was
Speaker 1: so at least for shareholders, that didn't look awful, right,
Speaker 1: because it looks like they're they're selling at a price
Speaker 1: that they might not otherwise see if CBS were to
Speaker 1: stand on its own, and it was an exceptionally big
Speaker 1: deal because CBS was, in theory, the last independent TV
Speaker 1: network by that time. So Westinghouse goes through this and
Speaker 1: the company itself already had a strong reputation. It was
Speaker 1: a broadcast pioneer. But while they had been in broadcast
Speaker 1: in the early days, in fact Westinghouse was one of
Speaker 1: the entities that was important in the formation of the networks,
Speaker 1: at this point that really wasn't their business anymore. They
Speaker 1: had moved away from that. They had gone into manufactring really,
Speaker 1: so broadcast was a tiny part of their empire. However,
Speaker 1: even though it was a tiny part of the empire,
Speaker 1: it was still important because it was the most profitable
Speaker 1: part of their empire. Fun fact about this Westinghouse buyout
Speaker 1: is that the announcement came one day after Disney announced
Speaker 1: its merger with ABC. So that's how I was able
Speaker 1: to be the last independent by day. It was interesting
Speaker 1: because you have tishe they're saying that this was this
Speaker 1: was a win. Mark. This is a win because the
Speaker 1: investors who had put their money into the company saw
Speaker 1: a return on that investment. But CBS was not immediately
Speaker 1: like repaired, like the damage that had been done the
Speaker 1: losing its way. It wasn't like immediately put on the
Speaker 1: right course now, although Westinghouse seemed to be really committed
Speaker 1: to pushing CBS as a network because they started selling
Speaker 1: off all of their manufacturing and production side of their
Speaker 1: business to focus on the television. Yeah, kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the story we just said about CBS when
Speaker 1: when they made the move to sell off the production
Speaker 1: and music sides. But in this case, the television side
Speaker 1: was the most profitable part of westing else so that
Speaker 1: is the fundamental difference there. So in n CBS is
Speaker 1: looking to improve their programming. So who do they turn to?
Speaker 1: They turned to a gentleman named Leslie moon Vos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this would be someone who becomes incredibly important in CBS.
Speaker 1: It's also a very problematic person to talk about, and
Speaker 1: we'll get into why. But chances are if you've heard
Speaker 1: the name, you understand where we're going already. However, let's
Speaker 1: talk about what moonvest was doing upon joining CBS. Well,
Speaker 1: he's working at the w B and he had also
Speaker 1: helped recently develop E R and Friends for NBC, which
Speaker 1: were huge. Friends is still huge, I will say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's enjoying a renaissance for reasons I haven't yet
Speaker 1: been able to understand. Now. Movis had originally started as
Speaker 1: an actor in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, that didn't work out,
Speaker 1: so and study moves behind the scenes, and he worked
Speaker 1: for as a producer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,
Speaker 1: which can I tell them? So when when Ariel wrote
Speaker 1: that down she had written the smother Brothers Comedy Hour,
Speaker 1: which it was a type of, it made me laugh
Speaker 1: so hard because it made me think that it was
Speaker 1: a comedy hour that has one joke. It's the same
Speaker 1: joke every week, and you know exactly what it is
Speaker 1: from the title. Yeah. Leslie Moonves was tasked to create
Speaker 1: the New CBS because he was so successful a creating
Speaker 1: new TV for new era. But at first he tried
Speaker 1: to do it too quickly. Yeah. The company already had
Speaker 1: a lot of momentum built up in a certain direction
Speaker 1: and was already being viewed as a as a company
Speaker 1: that was catering to an older audience, So switching that
Speaker 1: up to a younger one super fast ended up being
Speaker 1: counterproductive initially. So they were developing about twenty hours of
Speaker 1: new programming to plug into their lineup for the year,
Speaker 1: and even if they were only putting in ten to
Speaker 1: twelve hours of that programming, history showed that maybe two
Speaker 1: or three hours of that would be really successful and
Speaker 1: the rest wipe shows that would do okay and need
Speaker 1: to be changed out in the future. So if they're
Speaker 1: changing that big chunk of their lineup and it has
Speaker 1: a low success rate, it's not, in my opinion, very
Speaker 1: smart idea. Yeah, So it was still questionable about what
Speaker 1: moves is Uh impact was going to be on the channel,
Speaker 1: but as we will see in our next section, it
Speaker 1: ended up being just what they needed. All right. So
Speaker 1: after the initial push, what happens next, Well, Moves decides
Speaker 1: to t a tried in true show and bring it
Speaker 1: to CBS, to show that had originally been on NBC
Speaker 1: The Cosby Show, and they started to kind of experiment
Speaker 1: a bit. They did something that had not been done previously.
Speaker 1: They actually showed a preview of their new lineup of
Speaker 1: TV shows. Yeah, they're hoping that the sneak peek would
Speaker 1: get younger audiences invested earlier. While showing their program early
Speaker 1: was a good idea because Movis did have his finger
Speaker 1: on the pulse of what viewers wanted to watch, look
Speaker 1: at Friends and things like that. It had mixed success.
Speaker 1: I want to mention here that Moonvis was very stereotypical
Speaker 1: and what he liked, so he was good at developing
Speaker 1: shows and knowing what shows would take off, even before
Speaker 1: the trend really took off in television. So you might
Speaker 1: say shows about geeks are really popular. Like with the
Speaker 1: Big Bang theory, it wouldn't necessarily be popular at the time.
Speaker 1: He was trying to integrate it, but he really liked
Speaker 1: things like alpha males and smart, pretty women and very
Speaker 1: stereotypical roles. And he also wanted to keep CBS programming.
Speaker 1: He wanted to keep it from being too dark, but
Speaker 1: you get with Showtime or HBO. So he started introducing
Speaker 1: other new shows like Everybody Loves Raymond. I take issue
Speaker 1: with that title. You don't love Raymond, I don't hate Raymond.
Speaker 1: I'm indifferent towards Raymond. And by seven they had pulled
Speaker 1: back from introducing too many new shows, so about two
Speaker 1: thirds of their lineup was returning and about one third
Speaker 1: was new, and Westing Else would officially change its name
Speaker 1: to the CBS Corporation and then in an old friend
Speaker 1: came back to the network. Yes football, yes, the American football,
Speaker 1: not not soccer. Not soccer. Now in Viacom, which started
Speaker 1: as a television syndicate of CBS in the fifties, then
Speaker 1: split from CBS, got bought a bunch of Times and
Speaker 1: made a bunch of acquisitions, acquired CBS, and then in
Speaker 1: two thousand the deal became final. They acquired CBS forty
Speaker 1: billion dollars. So we see this continue, this trend continue
Speaker 1: where he starts to work on programming too again grab
Speaker 1: those younger audiences to turn around this this perception of CBS.
Speaker 1: And so you started getting shows like c S I
Speaker 1: coming out and then really one of the key television
Speaker 1: shows of the reality television era, Survivor, comes out in
Speaker 1: two thousand. By two, Survivor has hit thirty eight seasons.
Speaker 1: That's that's insane, it's impressive. And then he gets some
Speaker 1: more popular shows that you know, I haven't really watched,
Speaker 1: like Two and a Half Men. Not not a fan
Speaker 1: of it myself, but it was extremely popular. Yes, and
Speaker 1: then in two thousand four, moonves Mary's early show host
Speaker 1: Julie Chen and he becomes president and co chief operating
Speaker 1: officer of Viacom. But Viacom and CBS wouldn't remain a
Speaker 1: united entity, right, because in two thousand and five they
Speaker 1: would split into two publicly trade companies, so kind of
Speaker 1: a reversal of the merger. Yeah, but both were still
Speaker 1: owned by Sumner Redstone. Interesting, and then he was named
Speaker 1: president and CEO of CBS after that split, because obviously
Speaker 1: he was no longer CEO of Viacom, Right, So this
Speaker 1: is the point where we start seeing analysts say that
Speaker 1: his direction had really turned things around for CBS. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's even before Big Bang Theory came out. It
Speaker 1: was a year before Big Bang Theory were debut. And
Speaker 1: then around the same time, they launched the c W
Speaker 1: and took over showtime. And this was all because of
Speaker 1: that split between CBS and Viacom that they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been possible without that. Those those shows were a part
Speaker 1: of Viacom, and CBS took them. Yeah. So two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, it's the number one network by viewership, but
Speaker 1: not across all programming. News viewership was down partly because
Speaker 1: broadcaster wasn't the only game in town anymore. Now you've
Speaker 1: got all these different cable news stations as well. And
Speaker 1: those cable news stations are twenty four hour news. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, I want to do a
Speaker 1: quick little side note just because it personally impacts me.
Speaker 1: That's when CBS purchased the web company c net for
Speaker 1: one point eight billion dollars. And I had a lot
Speaker 1: of friends who worked over there, some of them still
Speaker 1: do high friends. I guess that was to compete with
Speaker 1: all of the twenty four news networks. Yeah. Well, it's
Speaker 1: also I've often seen traditional media companies purchase established online
Speaker 1: companies because it's a business that the traditional media doesn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of expertise in, and so rather than
Speaker 1: try to build up natively, which could take a really
Speaker 1: long time as you get your head wrapped around it,
Speaker 1: a lot of these traditional media companies will go out
Speaker 1: and buy an existing company, and that way kind of
Speaker 1: it's like trying to get a jump start on that business.
Speaker 1: So CBS had their finger on the pulse of sitcoms,
Speaker 1: of reality shows, drama, drama, and they were successful at
Speaker 1: it for a while, and then in two thousand fourteen
Speaker 1: they introduced CBS All Access to compete with streaming networks.
Speaker 1: And this to me is rough because I pay for
Speaker 1: CBS on my cable subscription, but I cannot watch Star
Speaker 1: Trek Discovery without buying the all access. Yeah, it's frustrating.
Speaker 1: I love CBS programming, but it's another streaming service I
Speaker 1: gotta buy. I hear we should just watch The Orville.
Speaker 1: I do enjoy The Orville. Actually program um and two
Speaker 1: thou fourteen. They also start selling reruns of their shows
Speaker 1: to their streaming services, and they're getting revenue from local
Speaker 1: networks and cable playing reruns. So I'm sure NBC is
Speaker 1: banking a lot off of Friends still being on Netflix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's crazy to think that a program that was
Speaker 1: made decades ago can still be and it hasn't been
Speaker 1: on the air for a long time, can still be
Speaker 1: making money for for a network like that. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: one thing that's happened recently, uh, this is fairly recently,
Speaker 1: within the last year, was that NBC was able to
Speaker 1: catch up to CBS as and actually overtake it as
Speaker 1: the most watched network, which first it was the first
Speaker 1: time it had happened since two thousand two, So this
Speaker 1: was in February. Like, that's a long run. But without
Speaker 1: taking that top spot, which is also kind of amazing
Speaker 1: when you sit there and think about some of the
Speaker 1: programming that was on NBC in those in those years too.
Speaker 1: But you know, the first time, it's two thousand two
Speaker 1: that NBC had taken the top spot. However, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a permanent displacement, right, Yeah. But as of May
Speaker 1: have two thousand eighteen, CBS hit its tenth season in
Speaker 1: a row of being America's most watched television network, the
Speaker 1: fifteenth time in sixteen years. Because it goes by seasons,
Speaker 1: so it's not a whole year of being top, it's
Speaker 1: a season. So there's some things that we want to
Speaker 1: wrap up with. One is that we haven't really mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but there's obviously been a lot of talk about allegations
Speaker 1: of sexual misconduct, specifically directed to Moonves that have been
Speaker 1: very disturbing, and they came from six different women, so
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a single person who's made this accusation.
Speaker 1: You know, We've obviously seen a lot arise in those
Speaker 1: reports as women are becoming more empowered and they feel
Speaker 1: that they have the place to be able to speak
Speaker 1: up about it. Whereas in years past, the sort of
Speaker 1: stuff would happen and often would just get swept under
Speaker 1: the rug. But that is turning around. That's still something
Speaker 1: that is playing out to this day. Yeah. In September
Speaker 1: of two eighteen, Moves resigned and Julie Chen also stepped
Speaker 1: down from her roles at CBS, and Joe n. L
Speaker 1: O came out as the acting CEO for CBS at
Speaker 1: that time, but then into umber. CBS after an investigation
Speaker 1: it launched into these allegations decided to deny mus a
Speaker 1: severance package, a hefty one twenty million dollar severance package,
Speaker 1: saying that he wouldn't cooperate fully with the investigations. Is
Speaker 1: fighting back because these allegations are still obviously being investigated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but still it's not a good story to tell. And
Speaker 1: we're back at an old story again about CBS and Viacom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are talks about them re emerging. I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess they just can't quit each other. Uh yeah, so
Speaker 1: interesting story. It's uh, whenever we talk about these big
Speaker 1: media companies and this, I mean, it doesn't get much
Speaker 1: bigger than a broadcast network. The story is always so complicated.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like some of our other really big
Speaker 1: company stories, and that you have all these major corporate players.
Speaker 1: You've got lots of maneuvering, You've got lots of talks
Speaker 1: of acquisitions that may or may not happen. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are are such big deals that there's questions
Speaker 1: about whether the FCC would allow to have comment steps
Speaker 1: in and says nope, you can't. Yeah. So this one
Speaker 1: was another complicated story. And again it's it's one that's
Speaker 1: not over. You know, we've seen the person who is
Speaker 1: who is pointed at as the savior of CBS now
Speaker 1: resigned and under investigation. So there's a big question mark there.
Speaker 1: And the other question mark is can the the new leadership,
Speaker 1: the relatively new leadership, can they pick up the baton
Speaker 1: and run with it and keep CBS forefront among the
Speaker 1: broadcast companies. I guess we'll have to keep our eyes peeled.
Speaker 1: I guess we need to tune in the TV. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: until then, we're going to wrap this one up. Let's
Speaker 1: say that people have questions or maybe a suggestion for
Speaker 1: a future topic. Where might they reach us? Well, they
Speaker 1: can reach us at feedback at the Brink podcast dot show, Yes,
Speaker 1: or you can go to www. Dot the Brink podcast
Speaker 1: dot show. There you're going to find the archive of
Speaker 1: all our episodes and also information about Little Me and
Speaker 1: Little Old Me. Yeah, she's in there too. Until next time,
Speaker 1: I have been Jonathan Strickland and I have been aerial
Speaker 1: casting