William S. Paley

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This article is about the broadcasting executive. For the philosopher, see William Paley.
William Samuel Paley

Born September 28, 1901(1901-09-28)
Chicago, Illinois
Died October 26, 1990 (aged 89)
New York City
Education The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Parents Samuel Paley

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.[1]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Paley's father Samuel Paley, a Ukrainian 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.

[edit] 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, in turn, bringing in profits to the network and to affiliate owners. Before Paley, most businessmen viewed radio stations as standalone outlets, or in other words, 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,[2] 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 and early through Paley's strong, some would say ruthless, maneuvering 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. 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 banishment of instant analysis by his news people following 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.

[edit] Death

Paley died of kidney failure on October 26, 1990, he was 89. [1]

CBS was bought by Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1995, and by Viacom Inc. in 2000.

[edit] 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, Paley sold the New York 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.

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.[3]

[edit] Personal life

[edit] 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.[4]

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."[2]

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.[4]

[edit] 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. The couple had two children, William and Kate.

[edit] Other affairs

Paley was a notorious ladies' man who was constantly romantically pursuing women outside of his marriage. Indeed, his first marriage ended when a newspaper published the suicide note written to Paley by a girlfriend that his wife Dorothy did not know about. He provided a stipend to former lover, actress Louise Brooks, for the rest of her life.

[edit] Trivia

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The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The Museum of Television & Radio in New York City hosts an annual panel series, with casts and crews from new television series, that is named after Paley. The museum itself was founded in 1976, partly with Paley's help. Its main building is named after the longtime CBS chief.
  • When Paley stated that he was a fan of CBS's 1960's western Gunsmoke, viewers knew Matt Dillon (played by James Arness) would never come to serious harm in the show. In fact, Paley was such a fan of Gunsmoke, he demanded, upon its threatened cancellation in 1967, it be reinstated somehow...and this led to the abrupt demise of Gilligan's Island, which had already been renewed for a fourth season.
  • Paley jokingly called NBC chief David Sarnoff "The 5th Cartwright" of Bonanza.
  • 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.
  • Squam Lake, where Paley's summer home "Kiluna North" is located, was the location for the 1981 Mark Rydell film On Golden Pond.
  • In 1974, Paley dedicated the 2nd building at the world renowned S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University
  • Paley personally dedicated the Library at Temple University named in honor of his father Samuel L. Paley

[edit] Honors

[edit] Works

  • As It Happened: A Memoir (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "William S. Paley, Builder of CBS, Dies at 89.", New York Times, October 27, 1990. Retrieved on 2008-04-25. "William S. Paley, who personified the power, glamour, allure and influence of CBS Inc., the communications empire he built, died last night at his home in Manhattan. He was 89 years old." 
  2. ^ a b Bedell Smith, Sally (1990). In All His Glory. The Life of William S. Paley. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-61735-4. 
  3. ^ MoMA and the Stein collection - see David Rockefeller, Memoirs, New York: Random House, 2002. (pp.450-58)
  4. ^ a b "Dorothy H. Hirshon, 89, Dies; Socialite and Philanthropist", New York Times, January 31, 1998. Retrieved on 2008-04-26. "Dorothy Hart Hirshon, a glamorous figure in New York society from the 1920's through the 40's who later became active in social, human rights and political causes, died Thursday in an automobile accident while driving near her home in Glen Cove, on Long Island. She was 89." 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links