CBS Leaps Into Streaming News: Tearing Down Another Wall?

On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, like many a news junkie, I’ve enjoyed reliving some of the great footage from on the scene news coverage of that historic event. I’ve also found it an interesting coincidence (or perhaps intended confluence) that on that anniversary CBS launched its new streaming video news network CBSN. Combined with its prior announcement of a new “CBS All Access” entertainment service, it does look like CBS is boldly leaping into….what? I guess that’s the question. Does the emergence of CBSN mean a new era of glasnost (openness) for the traditional and usually more hidebound CBS and especially the CBS News organization? As the old Russian proverb (famously repeated by Ronald Reagan) states – trust, but verify.

The launch of CBSN is worthy of our attention at least in part because of CBS’s own complex history with innovation. If we go to the way way back machine, CBS News was for generations the gold standard of broadcast journalism. Its history resonates with names like Edward R. Murrow, Eric Severeid, Walter Cronkite, and even Dan Rather (before the fall). CBS News took on Joseph McCarthy (the subject of George Clooney’s terrific “Good Night and Good Luck”), and most of us too young to directly remember President Kennedy’s assassination know very well Walter Cronkite’s iconic delivery of that news. CBS Reports set the gold standard for broadcast television documentaries with work such as “Harvest of Shame” (about the plight of American migrant farm workers) and “The Selling of the Pentagon” (about the Defense Department’s propaganda machine), which became the focus of an intense congressional counterattack on the network.

Yet against this proud history lies a far more mixed bag for CBS Corporation and its approach to new developments in media. In 1981, the network leapt into cable ahead of its other broadcast brethren with CBS Cable, a somewhat upscale offering that looked like a bit of a hybrid between PBS and the (old) A&E. This still-beloved project didn’t immediately catch fire (no cable operator ownership didn’t help), and CBS shut it down in a little more than a year. That fateful decision kept CBS out of cable for another generation.

In the early 1990s CBS spearheaded efforts in Congress to adopt retransmission consent, which forced cable operators to bargain for the right to carry broadcast television signals, but then blew the chance to cash in on this. Other broadcasters and cable operators made deals to create and/or drive distribution of FX and Fox News (from FOX), CNBC and MSNBC (from NBC pre-Comcast), ESPN2 (from ABC pre-Disney) and even HGTV and The Food Channel from smaller broadcasters. But CBS refused to join the party, and was left with not only no big cash payout, but no new cable assets to show for it.

In the online world, few probably remember that in 1984 CBS was one of the original partners (along with IBM and Sears, Roebuck) in Prodigy, one of the very first online content services. Yet CBS abandoned its investment by 1986. Thus another lucrative generation passed by without CBS’s participation.

Against this backdrop, what exactly is CBSN? With the full understanding that this ship has barely left port, here are a few immediate reactions to what it looks like:

It looks like CBS. This is no small thing. There is a comfort and familiarity with the classic CBS logo and Didot font (my design maven younger daughter has made me very sensitive to this stuff). In its search for young viewers, it seems smart for CBS not to try to be Buzzfeed - this looks like what CBS is.

It’s no technological marvel. Putting video news online is not exactly groundbreaking, even coming from a “traditional” media company. There is little or no “interactivity” here, no blog, no links with social media, and no interesting “B roll” footage. None of these would break the technology bank either, but hopefully once established CBSN gets a little more ambitious on this front.

"Always On", but not always so live. Much of the media focus on this launch is CBS being the first broadcaster to create a “live” streaming news channel, but this seems overblown. True, there is a "live feed" (labeled “Live Now”), but a fair amount of the time (even during daytime hours), what you see is curated content from among CBS News broadcast outlets. This certainly makes sense given all of the content in-house, but eventually you've got to have some "breaking news" (and not the kind that CNN is constantly selling).

It’s definitely lean back, not lean in. The conventional take on online or digital media is that it is “lean in” while traditional television is “lean back.” Whether or not you buy that split so much anymore (is anything MORE lean back than episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on Netflix?), CBSN definitely leans back. This is not necessarily a bad thing for a CBS product – there is a lot of great content here, and the world can do worse than really interesting interviews with Jon Stewart (from CBS This Morning), Steve Carell (60 Minutes) and even Bob Schieffer (with CBS’s Jeff Glor). But CBSN 2.0 will need some proprietary, not-so-available-everywhere content as well.

Against this backdrop of history and CBSN 1.0, you maybe can understand why I’m not ready to pronounce CBSN as the dawn of a new age. On the other hand, if you care about the delivery of high quality, objective (whatever that means anymore) journalism, then you have to see the creation of a new platform like this as a good step. In my recent conversation (on television) with Columbia Journalism School Professor Michael Shapiro, he speaks of the history of the news business (like life itself) as filled with weddings and funerals. We never know how the marriage will turn out in the end, but a good wedding is always a cause for celebration – so too, for CBSN. Bon Voyage!Jeff Glor). But CBSN 2.0 will need some proprietary, not-so-available-everywhere content as well.

Against this backdrop of history and CBSN 1.0, you maybe can understand why I’m not ready to pronounce CBSN as the dawn of a new age. On the other hand, if you care about the delivery of high quality, objective (whatever that means anymore) journalism, then you have to see the creation of a new platform like this as a good step. In my recent conversation (on television) with Columbia Journalism School Professor Michael Shapiro, he speaks of the history of the news business (like life itself) as filled with weddings and funerals. We never know how the marriage will turn out in the end, but a good wedding is always a cause for celebration – so too, for CBSN. Bon Voyage!

THIS PEICE WAS PUBLISHED ON FORBES.COM 11-11-12. IF YOU ARE INTERSTED IN MORE OF MY WORK ON FORBES, CLICK HERE.