CBS
"In the US, you watch Big Brother. In my country, Big Brother watches you!"
~Yakov Smirnoff from an alternate Orwellian universe.
 | |
| Headquarters | a Black Rock, New York City |
|---|---|
| Products | Entertainment, Assorted Vegetables |
| Revenue | Photos of Jim Nantz's feet (Just 20 bucks a pop!) |
| Owner(s) | Paramount Global (sorry, no CBS on The Moon) |
| Website | http://www.cbs.com/ |
CBS (or, "See? B.S.") is an American television network headquartered inside Sumner Redstone's secret torture/pleasure chamber located deep within the dankest, darkest cellars underneath the National Amusements building in New York City. CBS is broadcast 24 hours a day in Conservative senior citizen households across the nation and in Liberal ones whenever Stephen Colbert comes on (no one watches when James Corden is on). The network's programming currently consists of police procedurals, funny police procedurals, reality police procedurals, and Andy Griffith reruns. The network is operated by its CEO and President-for-Life Sheldon Cooper.
History[edit | edit source]
CBS's roots can be traced to the year 1907, when the Clam Baking Station, an experimental television network headquartered in New York City which broadcast instructional videos centered around the preparation of clams and oysters, was founded. Unfortunately, no one at the time had a television, as the medium would not be invented for another 20 years. Realizing this, the network soon pivoted to a radio format. Over the next decade, the network became bitter rivals with the other clam-cooking radio network on the market, NBC (Network for Baking Clams). However, in 1917, newly-appointed programming director William S. Paley came to the sudden realization that broadcasting programs pertaining to news, sports, and female personifications of America (the issues people of the time cared about) might cause ratings to increase. Thus, CBS changed its name to the Columbia Broadcasting Service, although they chose to keep the clam logo they had utilized previously on the basis that it also kinda sorta looked like an eye. It was also around this time that Walter Cronkite spontaneously appeared from thin air.
Television! Again![edit | edit source]
In the 1940's, CBS once again decided to enter the television field. Its main competitors (NBC, ABC, and FOX's divorced grandfather last seen living in Florida, DuMont) had already made the switch, and CBS's radio division was operating in the red following the disastrous failure of the ill-advised reintroduction of clam baking shows (though one show did spawn the career of a young Julia Child). Thus, in 1941, CBS officially entered the airwaves at 2:37 AM with a 15 minute experimental broadcast of Paley masturbating to an image of the CBS logo (FCC employees were too secretly turned on to censor the act). Over the course of the next 10 years, CBS dominated the ratings, partly on account of the fact that the other 3 networks only broadcast attack ads against one another (and only on alternating Tuesdays and Saturdays). By 1950, however, the others had found their footing and CBS faced a ratings threat. In response to this, CBS enlisted the services of a young husband-wife comedy duo to write a sharp, relevant family sitcom which would revolutionize the genre. Their final product, We Killed our Kids for the Insurance Money and Here's How!, flopped, but its hastily-made mid-season replacement I Love Lucy inexplicably became a huge success. Another comedy success of the period was Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners, a show that was deceptively not about honeymooners but instead was a period drama about an abusive bus driver living on the hardscrabble streets of New York City which just so happened to have a laughtrack attached to itself. Despite the somber overtones, viewers still tuned in every week to see if any actual honeymooners would show up, and the show became one of the hallmarks of CBS history.
Color? I hardly even know her![edit | edit source]
In 1951, CBS became the first American network to broadcast in color. In response, the American public said "Eh," and continued watching their regular black-and-white TV's. To combat this unrelenting indifference, in 1958 CBS made any and all B&W TV's spontaneously self-destruct via a violent explosion whenever their users tuned into CBS. The destruction ended in a win-win for the network, as no one realized only CBS TV's were blowing up and instead put the blame on the USSR because Communism (not to mention McCarthy's grandma dying from an explosion during an episode of As The World Turns), which angered the Russians and ultimately sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis. The technology CBS used to facilitate the destruction is still unknown.
The Forever (Rural) Purge[edit | edit source]
As the 1960's transmogrified from the idealized Kennedy dreamland of destiny into a collective countercultural movement Baby Boomers would conservatively romanticize for decades to come, CBS suddenly found its current lineup, while still immensely popular, to be nonetheless "too country," which essentially meant it was made up of shows which starred people who wore jeans on a daily basis. Thus, they re-pivoted their programming to fit what they considered to be the modern standard, axing shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Ed Sullivan Buys a Farm in a development known today as the "Rural Purge." However, this move ended up backfiring for the network as Jed Clampett unexpectedly became a hippie cultural icon, having been rumored, among other things, to have organized Woodstock and invented tie-dye.
The 70's and 80's[edit | edit source]
CBS continued to see relative success and hold its own as the latter half of the 20th Century came into focus, but hard times befell the network after one of Norman Lear's 12 recorded magnum opuses All in the Family ended in 1978. Due to a lack of popularity among its programming lineup (who would've thought that a reboot of We Killed Our Children for the Insurance Money and Here's How! wouldn't pan out?), in 1986 the other two networks decided to relegate CBS to basic cable a la English Association Football. However, instead of replacing the network with a successful cable station, the other two decided to call up the then brand-new Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC (oh screw it, we'll just call it FOX)) to replace CBS, despite an appeal by the USA Network. Nonetheless, CBS still found itself stuck in cable until 1991, when a new employee at the network named Les Moonves came up with the bright idea to sue NBC and ABC over the entire relegation ordeal on the basis that it didn't even make fucking sense to begin with. CBS won the lawsuit in 1993 after two years of legal satellite delay, and for better or worse was reinstated as the 5th most popular of the "Big 4" networks.
Tying the Knot (albeit loosely)[edit | edit source]
At the turn of the 21st Century, a stunning revelation rocked the broadcast world. After romantic interests between the two were renewed for the first time since the 1930's following a fateful corporation blind date at a restaurant in Los Angeles, CBS and Paramount announced plans to merge in holy corporate matrimony under one synergistic umbrella known as Viacom. To avoid anti-trust complaints, the merger occurred in the shotgun format at the Cupid's Arrow Drive-Thru Chapel in Las Vegas. CBS, FOX, and NBC were invited, but each declined on account of the lack of a reception and the fact that WWE Smackdown! was on that night. However, issues between the two began to surface soon after the honeymoon, and in 2005 the two corporations filed for divorce after a particularly messy argument over who would get to put down UPN. A settlement was reached a mere few months later, as Paramount ended up with custody over Nickelodeon, MTV, and the Viacom name, while CBS got Parmount's TV division and a coupon entitling the corporation to 25% off any family season pass at participating Paramount Amusement Parks (expired December 31, 1999). Following the split, the two sides remained hostile to one another despite being owned by the same conglomerate (National Amusements, a movie theater operator on the surface specializing in secretly running the media world from behind the scenes). This rivalry was reflected in the relations of the faces of both sides. For instance, Bob Barker was outlawed in 2006 from coming within 500 feet of a theater running a Paramount film. CBS responded by scrapping a proposed Tom Cruise daytime talk show on the network, albeit for fairly different reasons than Paramount's Barker ban. As the years went on, National Amusements grew further and further agitated with this continuing strife, and in 2019 the conglomerate ordered an arranged marriage between Viacom and CBS. The reluctant couple once again wed later on that year and adopted the immensely creative couple name ViacomCBS. ViacomCBS later changed its name to Paramount Global in 2022 out of sheer embarrassment.
Programming[edit | edit source]
CBS currently broadcasts a wide variety of programs suited to meet the tastes of all individuals in the "The television's just too damn political nowadays" year old demographic. The network's lineup is currently made up of the following:
Blue Bloods: Tom Selleck stars as the patriarch of a family of undercover blue-blooded space aliens disguised as a high-reputation police family in New York City. Blue Bloods is almost completely bankrolled by profits made from Selleck's many reverse mortgage ads, which air on a constant loop during the show's commercial breaks.
FBI: Also known as Dick Wolf’s Consolation Prize.
NCIS: NCIS has been a mainstay on the CBS lineup for over 20 years, despite the fact that even the network itself has absolutely no idea if the show is even produced anymore.
Ghosts: A couple runs a bed-and-breakfast with the help of a household of haunts and spirits. Your Mother likes this show.
CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell: CBS News's flagship production, Evening News presents a (relatively) even-handed representation of national and global affairs without explicit bias. Naturally, it ranks 57th among television news programs, one spot behind I Still Exist with Chris Cuomo.
Big Brother: Long-running reality competition series in which a group of contestants live, laugh, and experiment with anarchy whilst locked within an isolated house constantly monitored by surveillance cameras. Brother is intended to meet the needs of the demographic which finds Survivor to be too highbrow.
The Young and the Restless: For the past 47 seasons, Restless has been little more than a static shot of decomposing corpses lying around a living room due to their untimely deaths from the lack of rest outlined in the show's title.
The Price is Right: Unwavering corporate shill Drew Carey serves as the host of this daily ritual sacrifice to the toxic yet omnipresent consumer culture in America (though Plinko is pretty fun, to be completely honest)
NFL on CBS: Tony Romo, being the modern-day Nostradamus that he is, predicts that you will have absolutely no problems whatsovever with the sound of his voice.
Magnum P.I.: Left for NBC.
48 Hours: Left for dead.
.png){kind=logo}