Word: cbs
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...away at the network audience for much of the past decade. The remote-control device too has made viewers pickier: shows that don't grab their attention are zapped away in an instant. But the networks' woes have accelerated alarmingly this fall. Of the 22 shows introduced by ABC, CBS and NBC, not a single one is a bona fide hit. (The only new show that ranks in the Nielsen Top 30, America's Funniest People, is merely an appendage of an already established hit, America's Funniest Home Videos.) The three networks' combined share of the viewing audience -- more...
...avert such a disaster, the networks are looking for ways to reduce programming costs. Reality shows like NBC's Unsolved Mysteries and CBS's Top Cops are becoming more common, partly because they are cheaper to produce. Other cost-saving measures may be on the way: co-productions with overseas broadcasters, more live programming, and series that air more than once a week (an idea NBC flirted with for its new sitcom Parenthood). Meanwhile, the multipart mini-series, once a staple of the "sweeps" periods, has been virtually abandoned because of its exorbitant cost...
...case of faulty memory? Or conscious mythmaking? Either way, the anecdote sets the tone for Sally Bedell Smith's big, bruising portrait of the late CBS founder. Her book charts the trajectory of Paley's extraordinary career, from his purchase of a small group of radio stations in 1928 through his nurturing of CBS to become America's pre-eminent broadcast organization to his long, long goodbye and final, reluctant embracing of new owner Laurence Tisch. But in stark contrast to the encomiums written and uttered after his death last month, Smith's biography cuts a broadcast titan down...
...Smith's telling, Paley consistently inflated his own achievements and minimized the contributions of others. A pioneer in television? The CBS chief actually tried to obstruct the new medium's development, fearing it would cut into his radio profits. Champion of broadcasting's most respected news organization? Paley acquiesced to blacklisting in the 1950s and canceled Edward R. Murrow's See It Now because he feared it was too nettlesome to the Eisenhower Administration. As a decision maker, Paley was cautious and vacillating; underlings snickered over his frequent "540-degree turns." Some of his most decisive moves -- like dumping Walter...
...Glory is an impressive, meticulously researched work of broadcast history as well as a piquant glimpse inside CBS's corporate culture. Especially poignant is Smith's description of the complex relationship between Paley and Frank Stanton, the longtime president and "conscience" of CBS, who was crushed when Paley cast him aside rather than accept him as successor. It was a pattern that would be repeated with one heir apparent after another. By the end of his reign, Smith says bluntly, Paley, well into his 80s, "had become an albatross for the network...