The Columbia Broadcasting System — one of the three major American television networks, long known as the 'Tiffany Network' for its prestige news and entertainment programming.
CBS's contribution to American media: William Paley built CBS into the prestige broadcast network — 60 Minutes, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, M*A*S*H, All in the Family. Murrow's television journalism (See It Now, the McCarthy broadcasts) established broadcast news as a serious journalistic institution. CBS News' dominance of the Cronkite era made television the primary medium of American civic life. The 'Tiffany Network' brand represented the idea that television could aspire to quality.
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