William Paley

William Paley was an American broadcasting executive who took control of the small Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System in 1928 and built it over the following decades into CBS, one of the dominant American broadcasting companies across both radio and, later, television. Paley invested heavily in building CBS's news division, recruiting talent including Edward R. Murrow, and pursued an affiliate-network business model that gave CBS strong national reach. He led CBS in various senior roles for roughly five decades, shaping it into one of the three major American television networks of the mid-twentieth century broadcast era.