The Columbia Records album I Can Hear It Now 1933–1945 (1948) was described in the book Biographical Dictionary of Radio as "a spectacular critical and commercial success".
The huge success of the record (and two follow-up albums released in 1949 and 1950) prompted the pair to parlay it into a weekly radio show for CBS, called Hear It Now.
Originally, the series was to have been titled Report to the Nation, and was identified as such when it was announced as the following week's replacement for Broadway Is My Beat at the end of its December 8, 1950, episode.
It was the artillery fire that produced one of the show's more poignant moments as it backdropped the words of American soldiers fighting the Korean War.
But Time also lauded the "vivid reality" created by the aforementioned artillery clips, comments from wounded U.S. marines or Carl Sandburg's recital of his The People, Yes.
The rising importance of television compelled a reluctant Murrow in 1951 to introduce a TV version of the radio show, called See It Now.