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

William S. Paley (September 28, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois – October 26, 1990 in New York, New York) was the chief executive who built CBS from a small radio network to one of the dominant radio and television network operation in America.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Broadcasting pioneer 3 Other interests 4 Personal life 4.1 Marriage to Dorothy Hart Hearst 4.2 Marriage to Barbara Cushing Mortimer 4.3 Affairs 5 Trivia 6 Honors 7 Works 8 References

Paley's father Samuel, 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 studied at the University of Chicago and later the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce 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.

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 — 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, 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.

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 pass 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.

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.

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 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.

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

In the 1940s, William Paley and Dr. Leon Levy formed Jaclyn Stable, that owned and raced a string of thoroughbred race horses.

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; in 1962 he was tapped by then chaiman 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.^[1]

Paley died of kidney failure on October 26, 1990. He was 89.

Born February 25, 1908 in Los Angeles as Dorothy Hart, only child of Seth and Dorothy Jones Hart, she attended Marlboro School in LA, followed by one year at Bennett College. She was passionate about art.

At 18, she met William Randolph Hearst, Jr., and married him in New York in 1927. While her husband's professional advancement stalled, and he started drinking, she took a job with Harper’s Bazaar, and became quite successful. In 1931, Bill Paley met her and fell in love. After getting a Las Vegas divorce, Dorothy married Paley in Kingman, Arizona on May 12, 1932.

Dorothy was socially well connected to help her husband introducing him to Roosevelt liberals. Her opinion counted: “I can’t believe he would have voted Democrat without me.”^[2] She also became a fashion trendsetter through her work at Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and her social activities. Her knowledge of art influenced and refined Paley’s artistic tastes. When he started to get into collecting art, her direction were invaluable. During an art hunts in Paris, they were introduced to Matisse. Paley commissioned him to paint her, however, the painting was never completed, only charcoal sketches and drawings were made.^[2]

Their main residence was the estate "Kiluna" in Manhasset where they frequently entertained. With later estrangement between Paley and her, and Paley pursuing other women, among them his next wife, Barbara Cushing, the couple got a divorce on July 24, 1947 in Reno, Nevada. Dorothy retained custody of their two adopted children, Jeffrey Paley and Hilary Paley. Her third and last marriage to stockbroker Walter Hirshon lasted seven years.^[2] She died January 29, 1998 from the injuries of an automobile accident.

Paley married the divorced socialite and fashion icon Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimer on July 28, 1947. Paley and his second wife Babe, despite their success and social standing, were barred from country clubs on Long Island because he was Jewish. Instead, the Paleys built a summer home, "Kiluna North", on Squam Lake in New Hampshire and summered there for many years, routinely entertaining friends like Lucille Ball, Grace Kelly and David O. Selznick. The house was later donated to Dartmouth College and converted to use as a conference center.

They had two children, William Cushing Paley and Kate Cushing Paley.

Paley was a notorious ladies' man. His first marriage ended when a newspaper published the suicide note written to Paley by a girlfriend. He provided a stipend to former lover Louise Brooks for the rest of her life.

• The Museum of Television & Radio hosts an annual panel series, with casts and crews from new series, that is named after Paley. The museum itself was founded in 1976 as the Museum of Broadcasting, partly with Paley's help. Its main building on West 52nd Street in Manhattan is named after the longtime CBS chief.
• When Paley said that he was a fan of CBS's Gunsmoke, viewers knew Matt Dillon (played by James Arness) would not come to serious harm.
• Paley, in humor, called NBC chief David Sarnoff "The 5th Cartwright" of Bonanza.
• In the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, Paley is played by Frank Langella.
• Squam Lake, where Kiluna North is located, was the location for the 1981 Mark Rydell film On Golden Pond starring Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
• In 1974, Paley dedicated the 2nd building at the World renowned S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University

• Croix de Guerre with Palm, 1946
• Legion of Honor
• Legion of Merit, 1946
• Peabody Award, 1958 and 1961

• As It Happened. A Memoir, Garden City, NY; Doubleday, 1979

• Museum of Broadcast Communication's page on William Paley
• Business Week article about William Paley from June 1, 2004