CBS began its television operations on July 1, 1941, with its initial owned-and-operated station, WCBS-TV (then known as WCBW) in New York City.

[3] CBS's involvement in television dates back to the opening of experimental station W2XAB in New York City on July 21, 1931.

CBS then sold its interest in KTTV (now the West Coast flagship of the Fox network) and purchased outright Los Angeles pioneer station KTSL in 1950, renaming it KNXT (after CBS's existing Los Angeles radio property, KNX), later to become KCBS-TV.

More long-term, CBS bought stations in Philadelphia (WCAU, now owned by NBC) and St. Louis (KMOX-TV, now KMOV), but would eventually sell these stations off as well; before buying KMOX-TV, CBS had attempted to purchase and sign on the channel 11 license in St. Louis, now KPLR-TV.

Although the FCC turned down CBS's request to buy the channel 9 license in nearby Steubenville, Ohio and move it to Pittsburgh (that station, initially CBS affiliate WSTV-TV, is now NBC affiliate WTOV-TV), CBS did score a major coup when Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric, a co-founder of NBC with RCA, bought WDTV from struggling DuMont and opted to affiliate the now-recalled KDKA-TV with CBS instead of NBC (like KDKA radio) due to NBC extorting and coercing Westinghouse to trade KYW radio and WPTZ (now KYW-TV) for Cleveland stations WTAM, WTAM-FM (now WMJI), and WNBK (now WKYC); the trade ended up being reversed in 1965 by order of the FCC and the Department of Justice after an eight-year investigation.

[12][13][14] CBS's ownership of WCIX was generally regarded as a failure due to the station's signal and technical deficiencies, with then-station group president Howard Stringer telling local media in July 1989, "we can never be better than third".

[15] CBS then acquired Midwest Communications in 1992, which owned WCCO-TV in Minneapolis and WFRV-TV in Green Bay.

[20] Among the Group W stations, KPIX in San Francisco and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh were already CBS affiliates, while WJZ-TV in Baltimore and WBZ-TV in Boston switched from ABC and NBC, respectively.

[25] CBS had also bought WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island in early 1995 prior to the deal closing;[26] at the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of multiple stations with overlapping coverage areas, so WPRI was sold off in favor of Westinghouse's WBZ.

When CBS/Westinghouse began purchasing several broadcasting assets from Gaylord Entertainment during the late 1990s, these transactions included the acquisition of KTVT in Dallas.

[29][30] The merger created duopolies between CBS and UPN stations in Philadelphia (KYW-TV and WPSG), Boston (WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV), Miami (WFOR and WBFS-TV), Dallas–Fort Worth (KTVT and KTXA), Detroit (WWJ-TV and WKBD-TV) and Pittsburgh (KDKA-TV and WNPA).

Viacom also purchased the low-powered stations WTCN-CA and WWHB-CA,[34] integrating their local operations with WTVX.

[36] Later on November 4, 2005, The New York Times Company bought UPN-owned-and-operated station KAUT-TV to create a duopoly with NBC affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City.

[2] On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced that it would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch The CW later that September.

[37][38] The formation of The CW to replace both UPN and The WB triggered the 2006 United States broadcast TV realignment, a chain of affiliation changes across the country and the establishment of competitor MyNetworkTV.

In 2007, CBS-owned-and-operated WFRV-TV in Green Bay and its satellite WJMN-TV in Escanaba, Michigan, were sold to Liberty Media.

[40][41] That same year, Cerberus Capital Management formed the holding company Four Points Media Group to serve as a buyer for seven smaller-market stations, including CBS-owned-and-operated stations KUTV in Salt Lake City and KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas; and The CW affiliates WTVX in Fort Pierce, Florida, and WLWC in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

[45] The company announced that it would add additional on-air staff and expand WLNY's local news programming (at the time, that station had only an 11 p.m. newscast).

WLNY suspended its own news operations the previous day[46] and began airing WCBS-TV produced newscasts on July 2, 2012.

[55] In January 2021, it was reported that Dunn and Friend had been placed on administrative leave, following allegations of racist and sexist conduct.

[58] In the fall of 2022, WSBK-TV and WBFS-TV returned to independence, ending the only affiliations of MyNetworkTV carried by any Paramount station.