William S. Paley: Godfather Of Broadcasting by Daniel Alef

Description

The godfather of broadcasting. William S. Paley built CBS from a struggling radio network into the “Tiffany Network” — the home of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and television’s golden age. Daniel Alef’s biography traces how Paley’s taste, ambition, and showman’s instinct shaped American broadcasting for half a century.

From the radio wars of the 1930s — when Paley lured stars with the then-radical idea of selling them rather than sustaining them — through television’s rise, he bet on news, entertainment, and quality: creating the news division that defined broadcast journalism and the programming — from I Love Lucy to 60 Minutes — that defined eras. His story is the story of mass media’s most influential decades, told through the man who programmed them.

Crisp and well-told, this is a must for media-history buffs — and a fascinating portrait of a mogul who understood, before almost anyone, that content is king and talent is everything.

Before television, there was radio — and before CBS was a giant, there was a 26-year-old cigar heir with a plan.

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William Samuel Paley (1901–1990) took control of a struggling radio network in 1928 and turned it into the Columbia Broadcasting System, the most powerful voice in American broadcasting. Paley’s genius was programming: while rivals sold airtime, he built an audience. His famous talent raids of the late 1940s lured Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, Edgar Bergen, and other NBC stars to CBS — a heist that remade the industry overnight.

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Daniel Alef’s Godfather of Broadcasting traces Paley’s half-century reign: the creation of CBS News under Edward R. Murrow, the network’s move into television, and the larger-than-life persona — part showman, part statesman — that made “the Paley years” the golden age of the medium.

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Sharp, fast, and full of the deals and rivalries that built modern media, this is the story of an American original: the kid from a Ukrainian immigrant family who looked at a crackling radio and saw the future of entertainment.