Why Talent Matters More Than The Station

"CBS Logo Light" by watchwithkristin is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it. One of my favorite radio stories from the 1940s may be repeating itself in 2020.

As president of NBC, David Sarnoff was a technology guy. Sarnoff believed that once you owned all the radio stations and built the network, you had won. And NBC was huge.

The president of CBS, William Paley was a programming guy. Paley knew zip about technology but understood that talent was more important than the station brand.