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William S. Paley
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William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network to one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.
y's father Samuel Paley, a Russian Jewish immigrant, ran a cigar company and, as the company became increasingly successful, the new millionaire moved his family to Philadelphia in the early 1920s.
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William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was the chief executive who built Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network to one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States.
Early life
Paley's father Samuel Paley, a Russian Jewish immigrant, ran a cigar company and, as the company became increasingly successful, the new millionaire moved his family to Philadelphia in the early 1920s. William Paley received his degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in expectation that he would take an increasingly active role running the family cigar business.
The younger Paley's career took a fateful turn in 1927 when his father and some business partners bought a struggling Philadelphia-based radio network of 16 stations called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. Samuel Paley's intention had been to use his acquisition as nothing more than a medium for advertising promoting the family's cigar business, which included the La Palina brand. Within a year, under William's leadership, cigar sales had more than doubled, and, in 1928, the Paley family secured majority ownership of the network. Within a decade, Paley had expanded the network to 114 affiliate stations.
Broadcasting pioneer
During World War II, Paley served in the psychological warfare branch in the Office of War Information, under General Dwight Eisenhower, and held the rank of colonel. It was while based in London during the war that Paley came to know and befriend Edward R. Murrow, CBS's head of European news.
Paley quickly grasped the earnings potential of radio and recognized that good programming was the key to selling advertising time and, thus, in turn, bringing in profits to the network and to affiliate owners. Before Paley, most businessmen viewed radio stations as stand-alone outlets, or in other words, as the broadcast equivalent of the local newspaper. The individual stations originally bought programming from the network and were thus considered the network's clients.
Paley changed broadcasting's business model, not only by being a genius at developing successful and lucrative programming, but by viewing the advertisers (sponsors) as the most significant element of the broadcasting equation. Paley provided network programming to affiliate stations at nominal cost, thereby ensuring the widest possible distribution not only for the programming but the advertising. The advertisers then became the network's primary clients and, because of the wider distribution brought by the growing network, Paley was able to charge more for the ad time. Affiliates were required to carry programming offered by the network for part of the broadcast day, receiving a portion of the network's take from advertising revenue. At other times in the broadcast day, affiliates were free to offer local programming and sell advertising time locally.
Paley's recognition of how to harness the potential reach of broadcasting was the key to his building CBS from a tiny chain of stations into what was eventually one of the world's dominant communication empires. During his prime, Paley was described as having an uncanny sense for popular taste and exploited that taste to build the CBS network. As war clouds darkened Europe in the late 1930s, Paley recognized Americans' desire for news coverage of the coming war and built the CBS news division into a dominant force just as he had built the network's entertainment division previously.
In 1946, Paley promoted Frank Stanton to President of CBS, and broadcasting would never be the same. CBS expanded into TV early through Paley's strong, some would say ruthless, maneuvering. He rode the post-World War II boom in that medium to surpass NBC, which had dominated radio. Paley became the best-known executive in network television, personifying the control and vision which marked the industry through its heyday of the 1980s.
CBS long owned the Columbia Record Company and its associated CBS Laboratories. It was Columbia Records which introduced the 33 1/3 RPM long playing vinyl disc to successfully compete with RCA Victor's 45 RPM vinyl disc. It was also CBS Laboratories and Peter Goldmark who developed a method for color television. After much bare-knuckled lobbying in Washington by RCA President David Sarnoff and Paley, the FCC gave the nod to the RCA color system and CBS sold the patents to their system to foreign broadcasters PAL-SECAM. CBS was the last of the three broadcast networks to adopt color television, having to buy and license RCA equipment and technology.
Paley was respected not only for building CBS into an entertainment powerhouse, but for also encouraging the development of a news division that went on to dominate broadcast journalism for decades.
"Bill Paley erected two towers of power, one for entertainment and one for news," 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt said in his autobiography, Tell Me a Story. "And he decreed that there would be no bridge between them...In short, Paley was the guy who put Frank Sinatra and Edward R. Murrow on the radio and 60 Minutes on television. (Hewitt diplomatically omits reference to Stanton who greenlighted all the programming.)
The relationship between Paley and his news staff was not always smooth. Paley's friendship with Ed Murrow, one of the leading lights in the CBS news division and by then a vice president, suffered during the 1950s over the hard-hitting tone of the Murrow-hosted, See It Now series. The implication was that the network's sponsors were uneasy about some of the controversial topics of the series, leading to Paley worrying about lost revenue to the network as well as unwelcome scrutiny during the era of McCarthyism. In fact, See It Now lost its Alcoa sponsorship in 1955 and eventually its weekly Tuesday time slot, though it continued as a series of specials until 1958.
In 1959 James T. Aubrey, Jr., became the president of CBS. Under Aubrey, the network became the most popular on television with shows like The Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan's Island. However, Paley's personal favorite was Gunsmoke; in fact, Paley was such a fan of Gunsmoke, that upon its threatened cancellation in 1967, he demanded that it be reinstated somehow, which in turn led to the abrupt demise of Gilligan's Island, which had already been renewed for a fourth season.
During the 1963–64 television season, fourteen of the top fifteen shows on prime-time, and the top twelve shows of daytime television, were on CBS. Aubrey, however, fought constantly with Fred W. Friendly of CBS News, and Paley did not like Aubrey's taste in low-brow programming. Aubrey and Paley bickered to the point that Aubrey approached Frank Stanton and proposed a take-over of CBS. The take-over never materialized, and in 1965, when CBS's ratings began to slip, Paley fired Aubrey.
In 1972, Paley ordered the shortening of a second installment of a two-part CBS Evening News series on Watergate after he was contacted by Charles Colson, an aide to President Richard M. Nixon. And later, Paley briefly ordered the suspension of instant analysis by his news people following the Presidential addresses.
Over the years, Paley sold down his family stockholding in CBS and diversified his portfolio. When he died, he owned less than nine percent of the outstanding stock. CBS was bought by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, in 1995, and in 1999, by Viacom, which itself was once a subsidiary of CBS. Today, CBS is owned by CBS Corporation, after being spun off from Viacom in 2006, though National Amusements is still majority owner of CBS Corp. and the "new" Viacom.
Other interests
In the 1940s, William Paley and Dr. Leon Levy formed Jaclyn Stable, that owned and raced a string of thoroughbred race horses.
CBS purchased the New York Yankees from the Del Webb Company in 1964. Paley sold the Yankees in 1973 to Cleveland shipbuilder George Steinbrenner and a group of investors. Acting on behalf of CBS, Paley sold the team at its low ebb for $8.7 million. In April, 2006 Forbes Magazine estimated that the Yankees were worth $1.26 billion. To be fair, it was also under CBS stewardship (from 1964 onward), that the dominant Bronx Bombers fell into mediocrity, not making the playoffs during that stretch.
Philanthropy
Paley had an avid interest in modern art and built up an outstanding collection. He became a trustee of the Rockefeller family's Museum of Modern Art in the 1930s, and in 1962 he was tapped by then-chairman David Rockefeller to be its president. In 1968 he joined a syndicate with Rockefeller and others to buy six Picassos for the Museum from the notable Gertrude Stein collection. He subsequently became chairman, stepping down from the Museum in 1985.
The Paley Center for Media in Los Angeles and New York City was named after Paley. The New York museum was founded by Paley in 1976, when it was known as the Museum of Broadcasting. From 1991 — when it moved locations within New York — to 2007, it was known as The Museum of Television & Radio; its new location was known as the Paley Building. Its annual panel series, with casts and crews from television series, was also named after Paley.
In 1974, Paley dedicated the second building at the world-renowned S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He also personally dedicated the library at Temple University named in honor of his father, Samuel L. Paley.
Personal life
Marriage to Dorothy Hart Hearst
Paley met Dorothy Hart Hearst (1908-1998) while she was married to John Randolph Hearst, third son of William Randolph Hearst. Paley fell in love with her and after her Las Vegas divorce from J. R. Hearst, Paley married her on May 12, 1932 in Kingman, Arizona.
Dorothy had extensive social connections from her previous marriage and she used them to introduce Paley to several top members of President Franklin Roosevelt's government. She also exerted a considerable influence over Paley's political views. She later said that "I can’t believe he would have voted Democrat without me."
Dorothy began to become estranged from Paley during the early 1940s because of Paley's constant womanizing. The two obtained a divorce on July 24, 1947 in Reno, Nevada with Dorothy retaining custody of their two adopted children, Jeffrey Paley and Hilary Paley. In 1953, Dorothy married stockbroker Walter Hirshon; they divorced in 1961.
Marriage to Barbara Cushing Mortimer
Paley married the divorced socialite and fashion icon Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer on July 28, 1947. She was the daughter of renowed neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Paley and his second wife, in spite of their successes and social standing, were barred from country clubs on Long Island because he was Jewish. As an alternative, the Paleys built a summer home, "Kiluna North", on Squam Lake in New Hampshire and spent the summers there for many years, routinely entertaining their many friends, including Lucille Ball, Grace Kelly and David O. Selznick. The house was later donated to Dartmouth College and converted to use as a conference center; Squam Lake was also the setting for the 1981 Mark Rydell film On Golden Pond. The couple had two children, William and Kate.
Other affairs
Paley was a notorious ladies' man who was constantly romantically pursuing women outside of his marriage. Indeed, his first marriage ended when his wife Dorothy became aware of an affair when a newspaper published the suicide note written to Paley by a former girlfriend. He provided a stipend to his former lover, actress Louise Brooks, for the rest of her life. In his later years, he enjoyed keeping company with a coterie of devoted lady friends.
Death
Paley died of kidney failure on October 26, 1990. He was 89.
In Popular Culture
In the 1986 television movie Murrow, Paley is played by Dabney Coleman. In the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, Paley is played by Frank Langella.
Honors
Works
- As It Happened: A Memoir (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979)
Further reading
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- Paper, Lewis J. Empire: William S. Paley and the Making of CBS (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1987
- Sally Bedell Smith (1948- ), In All His Glory: the Life and Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1990) 782 pages
External links
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