Paley, meanwhile, loved to flatter and mingle with stars of both Hollywood and CBS. A natural programmer, he had a knack for guessing which entertainers had the ineffable charm to hook an audience, not just once but to make them tune in compulsively. "There were other men who were good businessmen," writes Halberstam, "and others who were deft salesmen, but the feel for talent, that was something else, and it was essential in so public and volatile a profession as broadcasting." Paley's ear was good enough to notice talent from the briefest exposure, so he was always ahead of everyone else. "He could, in 1931, go on a shipboard cruise and by chance hear the records of a then unknown singer and know instantly that the singer was big, very big, and send back a cable telling his subordinates to sign Bing Crosby immediately."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 349