CBS Broadcast Center

The CBS Broadcast Center is a television and radio production facility located in New York City. It is CBS's main East Coast production hub, similar to CBS Studio Center in Los Angeles as the West Coast hub. The Broadcast Center is one of two production facilities in Manhattan owned by ViacomCBS, the other being the studios for MTV located in the company's headquarters at One Astor Plaza.

CBS Broadcast Center
The broadcast center at 524 West 57th Street.
General information
TypeTelevision studios
Location530 W. 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
U.S.
Current tenantsCBS News
CBS Sports
WCBS-TV
WLNY-TV
OwnerViacomCBS

Description

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 and the CBSN live streaming news channel, and is the main broadcast facility for CBS News, CBS Sports, New York City flagship O&O station WCBS-TV and CBS-owned independent station WLNY. In 2001, BET previously used studios for 106 & Park and other in-studio shows (both BET and CBS were part of Viacom until their 2006 separation by the Viacom/CBS split, but re-merged in 2019). CBS Television Distribution's nationally syndicated newsmagazine Inside Edition is also taped at the Broadcast Center.

The Broadcast Center is also the production base for CBS News Radio. 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, the second and current incarnation of CBS This Morning, premiered from newly constructed Studio 57 at the Broadcast Center on January 9, 2012.

The CBS Evening News moved into Studio 57 from Studio 47 (previously sharing space with the CBS News newsroom) in December 2016.[1] It relocated from New York in November 2019, as new anchor Norah O'Donnell will be based in Washington, D.C..[2]

History

Early history

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.

The building in which the Broadcast Center is located formerly served as a dairy depot for Sheffield Farms. CBS 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.[3]

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.

CBS Broadcast Center and soap operas

Until January 2000, the Broadcast Center was home to CBS-TV's soap opera As the World Turns, which moved to JC Studios in Brooklyn. Defunct serials Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Secret Storm, 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 to 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".

Recent history

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.

HBO satire show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, TBS news satire show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Showtime talk show Desus & Mero and syndicated talk show The Mel Robbins Show are also recorded at the Broadcast Center.

On March 12, 2020, one day after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the CBS Broadcast Center was closed for disinfection after two employees tested positive for COVID-19. Production of WCBS newscasts was assumed by KCBS-TV, while CBS This Morning was moved to CBS News's Washington studio (used for the CBS Evening News since December).[4][5][6] The Broadcast Center reopened on a limited basis on March 14, 2020, starting with the Saturday edition of CBS This Morning from Studio 57;[7] on March 18, ViacomCBS announced that its operations would again temporarily relocate from the Broadcast Center, with CBS This Morning moving to the set of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at the Ed Sullivan Theater[8] and KCBS-TV again producing WCBS-TV's newscasts. Since March 20, WCBS-TV newscasts have been presented from the studios of New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets broadcaster YES Network in Stamford, Connecticut, [9][10] before moving back again to the Broadcast Center, beginning on April 17 with the morning newscast. On the June 21, 2020 broadcast of 60 in 6, Seth Doane partially covered the Broadcast Center's exposure to COVID-19 in a piece titled CBS News Battles COVID-19.[11] The piece mentions that CBS News flew in staffers, including those located in Seattle and Rome in early March 2020 to begin filming promotional material for 60 in 6, which brought COVID-19 positive individuals in close contact with CBS employees which resulted in the shutdown of the CBS Broadcast Center.[12]

Studios

References
  1. "A look back at 'CBS Evening News' in Studio 47". Newscast Studio. December 7, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
  2. CBS News keeps Gayle King on 'CBS This Morning' as Norah O'Donnell shifts to 'CBS Evening News' USA Today, May 5, 2019
  3. Montopoli, Brian (June 13, 2006). "Getting To Know The Broadcast Center". CBS News. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2016.
  4. Barone, Vincent (March 11, 2020). "CBS closes NYC offices after two employees positive for coronavirus". New York Post. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  5. "CBS New York turns local news over to Los Angeles as studios remain closed". NewscastStudio. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  6. "Two CBS News workers in New York diagnosed with coronavirus". Los Angeles Times. March 11, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  7. "CBS News getting NYC broadcast center back up and running". MixDex. March 14, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  8. Barr, Jeremy (March 18, 2020). "CBS News to Film Morning Show From 'Late Show's' Ed Sullivan Theater". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  9. Ariens, Chris (March 18, 2020). "KCBS Anchors Will Again Fill in on WCBS With Coronavirus Concerns Not Yet Contained". TVSpy. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  10. Malone, Michael. "CBS' Owned Stations Pitch In With National Newscasts". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  11. CBS News Battles COVID-19 60 in 6 FULL EPISODE Quibi (Television production). United States: Quibi. June 22, 2020. Archived from the original on October 4, 2020. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
  12. Bicks, Emily (March 11, 2020). "CBS News Buildings Evacuated After Coronavirus Outbreak". heavy.com. Heavy, Inc. Archived from the original on March 12, 2020.
  13. Hill, Michael (January 9, 2012). "'CBS This Morning' debuts from Studio 57". NewscastStudio. Retrieved January 9, 2012.

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