By 1960, nearly every household in the U.S. had a television, replacing radio and movie theaters as the main source of news and entertainment. Where once people either had to schlep their way to the theater or just imagine the world as described by a disembodied voice, they now had the best of both worlds conveniently contained in a glowing box in their living rooms. Now one could go on and on about the transformational affect TV had on society, but in the end it was of course all about the money. As with today the TV networks battled to provide the best entertainment in order to attract in the most viewers, because of course more viewers meant more money from advertisers. However, unfortunately for the early networks, there was one place they weren't making money hand over fist. As required by U.S. law, the television networks had to use a certain number of hours for the presentation of local and world news. Hours that earned diddly squat for the networks.
This all changed in 1961, when the world seemed to be collapsing into World War III. Growing animosity between the United States and Soviet Union led to several high profile incidents that year, namely the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba and the building of the Berlin Wall. Convinced that it was only a matter of time before the nukes started flying, countless Americans began watching the news religiously. This little uptick of course did not escape the notice of the TV networks, but more importantly they also noted that a similar uptick in viewership for the shows put on right after the news. Apparently people were just too damn lazy to change the channel. Recognizing a surefire way to boost advertising, the networks began pumping money into their news programs in order to get more amazing stories to get more people to tune in. In less than a year TV news changed from a man basically reading the newspaper out loud to vast webs of reporters spread across the country and around the world. Things of course got weird.
By 1962, the big draw in viewership was news about the Berlin Wall and East Germans making escapes over it, under it, and through it. The major news networks were desperate to get footage of people escaping. However, for obvious reasons, such footage was extremely hard to get. At least it was until some egghead at NBC came up with the brilliant plan of giving a group of German students a bunch of money to dig a tunnel under the wall in return for the right to film everything. While the whole thing was rather skeezy, it did result in twenty-one East Germans making their way to freedom, and more importantly, some pretty damn amazing footage which led to a huge boost in NBC's ratings. However, not everyone was happy with this turn of events. The U.S. government was definitely not happy, what with this all happening right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For some reason the pinheads at the State Department were less than pleased with American journalists funding escape tunnels at the height of the Cold War. NBC's main rival, CBS, was also not pleased. The suits at CBS were the first to point out that maybe NBC paying people to dig a tunnel wasn't exactly the height of journalistic integrity. However, before you start applauding CBS for its strong values, it’s probably worth mentioning that CBS had been funding the construction of its own tunnel under the wall, at least until the U.S. government caught wind of it and forced them to stop.
Now one might think everyone learned a valuable lesson from all of this, but of course you would be wrong. Such shenanigans continued throughout the early 1960's, culminating in CBS funding a planned invasion of Haiti. In 1966, a group of somewhat geographically confused Cuban freedom fighters decided to invade Haiti in order to use the country as a launching point for a subsequent invasion of Cuba. All in all it wasn't the worse plan in the world, minus the fact that the would be army had absolutely zero money. Luckily, they somehow came into contact with CBS. Recognizing that a war in the Caribbean would be great for ratings, CBS supplied some $1.5 million in today’s money in exchange for exclusive filming rights. Let that sink in for a moment. CBS supplied money to a paramilitary group to buy guns for a planned invasion of Haiti. They were literally going to get people killed in order to attract more viewers to watch commercials about soaps and cigarettes. Unluckily for CBS, but quite lucky for everyone else, the whole thing fell apart before it could really get off the ground. The so-called freedom fighters were all arrested and jailed and CBS was investigated by Congress. However, the hearings were all closed to the public in order to protect the network’s credibility. Which is a nice way of saying they had none. In the end, not one CBS employee was prosecuted, but at the very least the networks got it through their heads, at least for a time, to quit fucking around.
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