William S. Paley Explains How He Bought CBS

On November 20, 1958 head of CBS William S. Paley received an award for his thirty years of work in the field of programming. Paley had purchased a then struggling Columbia Broadcasting System for $417,000 on September 25, 1928. Within those first two years he focused on two things—gaining as many coast-to-coast network affiliates as possible, and putting together the most complete, experimental programming schedule on network radio. In this clip from that speech, he explains how he came to purchase CBS.