CBS Radio (1928)

CBS Radio is one of the oldest units within CBS Corporation, second to the CBS Radio Network, and has been around since 1928. The CBS Radio Network, however, was launched in 1927, when CBS itself was known as United Independent Broadcasters. Columbia Records later joined in and that company was renamed the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. In September 1927, Columbia Records sold the company to William S. Paley and in 1928, Paley streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System.

The company that would become CBS Radio was founded in 1972 as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation by Michael A. Wiener and Gerald Carrus, with the acquisition of KOME, an FM radio station that served the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a publicly-traded company twice, in 1986, and again in 1992.

Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which acquired CBS, Inc. in 1995, acquired Infinity Broadcasting in 1997. Westinghouse, which established modern broadcasting on November 2, 1920 with KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, would later change its name to CBS Corporation, and reorganize all of its radio properties , as well as its outdoor advertising business, under the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation name.

In 1999, CBS Corporation was merged into Viacom. On December 14, 2005, Viacom changed its name to CBS Corporation and spun off its motion picture and cable television assets under the Viacom name. In anticipation of this, Infinity Broadcasting was reorganized as CBS Radio.