CBS Broadcast Center

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CBS Broadcast Center
Cbs-57.jpg
The broadcast center at 524 West 57th Street.
General information
Type Television studios
Location 524 West 57th Street, New York, NY
Current tenants WCBS-TV
WLNY-TV
CBS Television Network
CBS Radio Network
CBSN- CBS Evening News
CBS News
BET (106 & Park)
Owner CBS Corporation
Website
http://www.cbsbroadcastcenter.com

The CBS Broadcast Center is a television and radio production facility located in New York City. It is CBS's main East Coast production center, much as Television City in Los Angeles is the West Coast hub.

Overview

The nearly block-long facility at 524 West 57th Street, in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan, serves as the headquarters of CBS News, the CBSN live streaming news channel and the main broadcast facility for CBS News, CBS Sports, New York City O&O flagship station WCBS-TV, and CBS-owned independent station WLNY. Black Entertainment Television also uses the Broadcast Center for 106 & Park and other in-studio shows for the network (Both BET and CBS were part of Viacom before being separated by the Viacom/CBS split). CBS Television Distribution's nationally syndicated newsmagazine, Inside Edition, is also taped at the CBS Broadcast Center.

The Broadcast Center is also the production base for the CBS Radio Network. The network's Master Control (aka Central Control) on the first floor also serves as the routing center for other programming distributed by Westwood One (formerly Dial Global). The radio network's flagship station, WCBS (AM), was housed in the Broadcast Center from 2000 (moving from Black Rock, CBS's corporate headquarters at 51 West 52nd Street) until 2011 when it relocated to 345 Hudson Street in lower Manhattan, billed on-air as "The CBS Hudson Square Broadcast Center."

In addition to the Broadcast Center, CBS has one other major studio in Manhattan — the Ed Sullivan Theater (CBS-TV Studio 50) at 1697 Broadway, the home of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The General Motors Building (CBS-TV Studio 58) on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street, was the home of The Early Show until December 31, 2011. The Early Show's successor, CBS This Morning, premiered from newly constructed Studio 57 at the Broadcast Center on January 9, 2012.

The Center opened as the CBS Production Center in the late 1950s, when the network's master control, film and videotape facilities, and four studios were located in the Grand Central Terminal building. Operations moved from Grand Central to the Broadcast Center in stages, ending in late 1964.

From the 1950s to 1970s, another prominent CBS stage in New York was Studio 52 (now the disco-theater Studio 54) at 254 West 54th Street, around the corner from Studio 50. CBS also leased the Himan Brown studios at 221 West 26th Street (now Chelsea Studios) for several shows in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

In early 2012, it was announced The Nate Berkus Show would not be renewed. After a few months it was announced that Anderson Cooper's talk show would move into Studio 42 leaving its home in the Time Warner Center.

Also in 2012, CBS acquired the Riverhead, Long Island-licensed WLNY-TV (Channel 55, cable channel 10), setting up a duopoly with WCBS-TV. Following the merger, CBS moved that station's employees to the CBS Broadcast Center, with their former Melville facility maintained as the WCBS/WLNY Long Island bureau offices. WLNY currently carries one program from Broadcast Center: a 9pm newscast with WCBS's news personnel from Broadcast Center. Live from the Couch, a morning show airing parallel to CBS This Morning on WCBS, was broadcast on WLNY from 2012 until early 2014, when it was canceled due to low ratings.

History

CBS takes over the depot

The building in which the Broadcast Center is located formerly served as a dairy depot for Sheffield Farms. CBS, which had been using studios at Grand Central Terminal and other theaters throughout Manhattan, purchased the site in 1952 and began using it regularly for TV in 1963. The radio network, with offices at 1 East 53rd Street and studios at 49 East 52nd Street, near the old CBS corporate headquarters at 485 Madison Avenue, moved to the Broadcast Center in July 1964, while the television network's master control moved from Grand Central to the Broadcast Center in late 1964. The company spent $14.5 million to create what was, at the time, "the largest 'self-contained' radio and television production center in the United States and the most modern broadcasting plant of its kind in the world," as the New York Tribune put it in 1961.

CBS Broadcast Center and soap operas

Until January 2000, the Broadcast Center was home to CBS-TV's soap opera As the World Turns. Defunct serials Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and Where the Heart Is were also produced at the Broadcast Center.

After a 37-year absence, Guiding Light, returned to the Broadcast Center in September 2005, after 17 years at EUE/Screen Gems studios, 222 East 44th Street and 20 years at the CBS/Himan Brown studios at 221 West 26th Street. The show had been produced in Studio 45 at the CBS Broadcast Center from 1965-1968 before moving to West 26th street. "GL" used Studios 42 and 45 until its final broadcast on September 18, 2009.

"From the ABC Broadcast Center..."

In 1996, Brillstein-Grey Entertainment produced "The Dana Carvey Show" at the Broadcast Center for ABC. As a jab at CBS (ABC's competition), the show's opening credits had a man with a paper version of the ABC logo on a ladder outside of the Broadcast Center covering over the CBS Eye logo while the announcer proclaimed "From the ABC Broadcast Center".

Studios

References

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External links

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