WCBS NEWS & RECOLLECTIONS
add your memories about one of the nation's greatest radio stations
Recent highlights: Former tech Dave Delage remembers the dress code. CBS staff announcer Bill Gilliand is dead. Troubled former Newsradio 88 anchor Will Spens dies in crash; Roger Mudd's The Place to Be; Listener Joseph Gallant on 1967 CBS Six-Day War ad; Former reporter John Mathieu remembers a classic Art Athens line.
WCBS AUDIO
Historic CBS broadcasts plus trivia. Airchecks, jingle packages. Voices of Rich Lamb, Charles Osgood, Lou Adler, Art Athens, Jim Donnelly, Harvey Hauptman, Rita Sands, Gary Maurer, Ben Farnsworth, Bill Fahan, Neil Busch -- too many to count. Includes first hour, first day of Newsradio88 in 1967.
 STUDIO MAP Fascinating chart [click on head] showing locations of the many CBS studios sprawled across Manhattan before and after the [planned] construction of the CBS headquarters building (Black Rock) in 1966 and the expansion of the CBS Broadcast Center on the West Side. CBS aficionados will love this. Courtesy Bob Gibson.
RITA SANDS' SCRAPBOOK
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Former WCBS anchor Rita Sands gives us dozens of candid, behind the scenes Newsradio88 snapshots dating back to the 70s. In addition to shots of such air people as Steve Porter, Tom Franklin, and Dave Marash, are off-air folks like Paul Ducroiset, Phil Cecchini, Mary Ellen Porrazzo, Peter Bekker. Nice slideshow. | |
CBS “BOARD” TO MEET JUNE 7
While the next "Board" meeting will be in June, past and current CBS types and guests last gathered in Teaneck for their informal semi-annual luncheon on Dec. 8, 2007. Click on headline above to go to the "Board" page and to see the pictures. Veteran broadcaster Bob Leeder is now "Board Chairman." Bob Gibson, who led the luncheons since '93, has retired.
 Leeder presents framed tributes to Gibson (left) 2007 -- click to enlarge
1980s NEWSRADIO88 TV SPOTS
A WCBS staffer unearthed these short back-to-back TV commercials for Newsradio88 from the 1980s on YouTube. The first features Yankees manager Lou Piniella, the second actress Sally Struthers. Announcer's voice is Jim Donnelly. Runs thirty seconds. Click on image to play. | |
NEWSRADIO 88's 40th
ANNIVERSARY BASH
Old-timers and current staff members gathered throughout the day on August 28, 2007, at the WCBS radio studios at the CBS Broadcast Center to celebrate the station's 40th anniversary as Newsradio 88. Click HERE to see the pictures. WCBS has posted an official 40th anniversary site loaded with photos, audio, video, and a guest book. Go to Newsradio88 Anniversary.
THREE BROADCAST LEGENDS
Election night, New York, 11/7/06
Rich Lamb, WCBS; Stan Brooks, WINS; Mitch Lebe, Bloomberg Radio (ex-WCBS)
Combined broadcasting experience: 110 years (rough estimate)
MORE THAN JUST THE HEADLINES
OH, REALLY?In the 1990s the Dallas Axcess Group jingle mill created musical packages for CBS Radio's O&Os. WCBS Radio's famous "More Than Just the Headlines" jingle was most likely ripped off from the Kander and Ebb Kiss of the Spider Woman score. If you doubt it, listen here. Or go to WCBS Audio Files
WCBS GALLERY
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A collection of WCBS souvenirs, program schedules, artifacts, pictures, posters, old ads, memorabilia, kitch, and just plain junk. |
 Mitch Lebe, budding announcer
Joke! Joke! |
JACK STERLING...
in the years between Arthur Godfrey and All-News, Sterling was WCBS.
ABOUT ART
Dedicated to the celebrated WCBS reporter Art Athens
William S. Paley, CBS founder-in-chief, 9/19/38
FORMAT CLOCKS
Dual clocks show the formatting differences between then rivals WCBS and WINS. Believed to have been printed in Broadcasting 1991. Click to enlarge.
click images below to enlarge
 CBS Radio Ad 1967
Edwards, Townsend, Wallace, Cronkite |
 CBS Radio Ad 2006
Osgood
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WCAU: WHAT HAPPENED?
Demise of WCBS's sister-station in Philadelpia.
 
images courtesy Don Bayley
WCBS' JOHN HENRY FAULK
1950s WITCH HUNT VICTIM
Long before Newsradio88, Texas humorist John Henry Faulk, later a fixture on TV's "Hee-Haw," was a star on WCBS Radio -- until he was blacklisted during the right-wing communist witchhunts of the 1950s. After his ordeal at WCBS, which he wrote about in his book Fear on Trial, Faulk recorded a delightful Christmas story for National Public Radio. Click on the headline above to read and hear it. Back in Texas, Faulk failed in a bid for elective office. He died in Austin on April 9, 1990. Hear Faulk discuss how WCBS Radio's former management caved in to the far right. Go to the AUDIO FILES PAGE.
CBS: ONE CLASSY JOINT
click to enlarge
The paper goods at CBS were part of the design unity created by Lou Dorfsman, Creative Director of Advertising and Design for more than forty years. Even the Black Rock cafeteria's (51/20 Club) coffee cups and sugar packets displayed the famous CBS typefont known as Didot, as well as the stationery and interoffice envelopes. | |
Don Swaim's two-part mp3 interview with Lou Dorfsman HERE
WCBS LOBBY
click "88" image below to enlarge
 Longtime staffers will remember the huge decorated plywood "88" (another Lou Dorfsman creation) in the WCBS lobby on Black Rock's 16th floor. For a while there was a receptionist. Later, an in-house phone was installed next to the door, so visitors had to call someone to be allowed in. Because of demonstrations, sit-ins, and bomb threats WCBS became locked as tight as a drum. Each staff member was given a key, later a digital ID card, which served as a key.
BOOK BEAT
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Famed author Norman Mailer appears on WCBS's nationally-syndicated "Book Beat," 1991, one of more than 700 unedited Don Swaim interviews with the greatest writers of the 70s, 80s 90s, and preserved by Ohio University, which organized and posted the archive on the Internet. In addition, all of the broadcast's actual two-minute features, some 3,000 of them, are available as mp3 files at Book Beat: The Podcast. The archive narrowly escaped extinction, but, thanks to Ohio University and Wired for Books, is reaching fans and scholars in a way the original broadcasts could not do. Cited by PC Magazine's "Best of the Internet" in November 2007.
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click image to hear Mailer interview
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KNX-AM QUITS HOLLYWOOD
WCBS's sister station leaves historic network facility at Columbia Square. Go to AUDIO FILES PAGE for a terrific KNX documentary with archival sound.
THROUGH THESE PORTALS...
51 W. 52nd St.
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