CBS dusts off 'Person to Person'

CBS is dusting off a fascinating bit of TV history Wednesday night with "Person to Person" (CBS/2 at 8), anchored by Charlie Rose and Lara Logan. But long ago, this was the exclusive sandbox of one Edward R. Murrow, then broadcast journalism's most renowned figure.

Tonight's revival is pretty much in name only, given the vast spread of time separating both. Murrow's "Person to Person," which launched Oct. 2, 1953, was a marvel of technology, with novel split screens and the anchor needing to travel no further than his sanctum on Ninth Avenue to conduct live interviews with celebrities in their homes. Murrow began with Brooklyn Dodgers great Roy Campanella and conductor Leopold Stokowski. (Tonight George Clooney and Jon Bon Jovi are interviewed at home while Warren Buffett will be interviewed from his Omaha office; no preview disc was made available to screen.) The Friday series was to become a hit.

Murrow lashed out at the industry in a famous 1958 speech after the quiz-show scandals embroiled CBS' "The $64,000 Question." TV's greed, he said, had turned the medium into a swamp of "decadence." CBS chief William Paley hit the roof.