[4][5] The program's first season featured episodes that tried "to please every body in a mass audience, using only highly formularized plays.

Originally a half-hour production, in 1955 the show expanded to an hour and began to emphasize dramatized versions of real-life contemporary events (including the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria) and a documentary on the history of Communism in the Soviet Union.

Upon moving to CBS, the show emphasized several Cold War topics, including espionage, Radio Free Europe and escapes from East Germany.

[7] David Susskind, producer of the program, called the new episodes "actuals", describing them as "dramatizations based on truth".

The success of the Italian broadcast on Telecapri News in the late 2000s and 2010s (followed by Telecapri from 2015 to 2016) led the series to broadcast in Poland, where Polsat JimJam aired only the sixth and ninth season with Polish subtitles and in the United Kingdom on CBS Justice.