became the first television soap when it began to air on CBS in 1950. Burns Allen made the move in 1950; Lucille Ball a year later; in 1952 (though it continued simultaneously on radio for its full television life). The high-rated Jack Benny radio show ended in 1955, and Edgar Bergen's Sunday-night show went off the air in 1957.
When CBS announced in 1956 that its radio operations had lost money, while the television network had made money, it was clear where the future lay. The last of CBS's daytime serials went off the air November 25, 1960, and prime-time radio ended on September 30, 1962 when a CBS offering, the legendary , aired for the final time. After the retirement of talk-show pioneer Arthur Godfrey in 1972, CBS radio programming consisted of hourly news broadcasts, occasional news features and commentaries, and the nightly "CBS Mystery Theater", the lone holdout of old-style programming.
The CBS Radio Network continues to this day, but offers primarily newscasts and news-related features like "The Osgood File" and "Harry Smith Reporting" as well as other talk properties like "Opie and Anthony" The television years: expansion and growth CBS's first television broadcasts were experimental, often only for one hour a day, and reaching a limited area in and around New York City (over station W2XAB channel 2, later called WCBW and finally WCBS-TV). To catch up with rival RCA, CBS bought Hytron Laboratories in 1939, and immediately moved into set production and color broadcasting. Though there were many competing patents and systems, RCA dictated the content of the FCC's technical standards, and grabbed the spotlight from CBS, DuMont and others by introducing television to the general public at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
The FCC began licensing commercial television stations on July 1, 1941; the first license went to RCA and NBC's WNBT (now WNBC); the second license, issued that same day, was to WCBW, (now WCBS). CBS-Hytron offered a practical color system in 1941, but it was not compatible with the black-and-white standards set down by RCA. In time, and after considerable dithering, the FCC rejected CBS's technology in favor of that backed by RCA.
During the World War II years, commercial television broadcasting was reduced dramatically. Toward the end of the war, commercial television began to ramp up again, with an increased level of programming evident in the 1945-1947 period on the three New York television stations which operated in those years (the local stations of NBC, CBS and DuMont) But as RCA and DuMont raced to establish networks and offer upgraded programming, CBS lagged, advocating an industry-wide shift and re-start to UHF for their incompatible (with black and white) color system. Only in 1950, when NBC was dominant in television and black and white transmission was widespread, did CBS begin to buy or build their own stations (outside of New York) in Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities.
Up to that point, CBS programming was seen on such stations as KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, which CBS--as a bit of insurance and to guarantee program clearance in Los Angeles--quickly purchased a 50% interest in. CBS then sold their interest in KTTV and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL (Channel 2) in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after sister CBS radio station KNX), later to become KCBS. The "talent raid" on NBC of the mid-forties had brought over established radio stars; they now became stars of CBS television as well.
One reluctant CBS star refused to bring her radio show, "My Favorite Husband," to television unless the network would re-cast the show with her real-life husband in the lead. Paley and network president Frank Stanton had so little faith in the future of Lucille Ball's series, re-dubbed , that they granted her wish and allowed the husband, Desi Arnaz, to take financial control of the production. This was the making of the Ball-Arnaz Desilu empire, and became the template for series production to this day.
In the late 1940s, CBS offered imaginative and historic live television coverage of the proceedings United Nations General Assembly(1949). This journalist tour-de-force was under the direction of Edmund A. Chester, who was appointed to the post of Director for News, Special Events and Sports at CBS Television in 1948.
The broadcast clearly underscored CBS's long term commitment to excellence in broadcast journalism in the post World War II era. As television came to the forefront of American entertainment and information, CBS dominated television as it once had radio. By the late 1950s, the network often controlled seven or eight of the slots on the "top ten" ratings list.
This would continue for many years, with CBS bumped from first place only by the rise of ABC in the mid-1970s. Perhaps because of its status as the top-rated network, during the late 1960s and early 1970s CBS felt freer to gamble with controversial properties like the became the first television soap when it began to air on CBS in 1950.
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