CBS Radio is one of the oldest units within CBS Corporation, and has been around since 1928. However, the actual CBS Radio Network (now CBS News Radio) was launched in 1927, when CBS itself was known as United Independent Broadcasters. Columbia Records later joined in and that company was renamed the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. In September 1927, Columbia Records sold the company to William S. Paley and in 1928, Paley streamlined the corporate name to Columbia Broadcasting System.

In 1940, Paley also joined forces with the journalist Edmund Chester at CBS Radio and Nelson Rockefeller at the Department of State's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to launch the imaginative Network of the Americas (La Cadena de Las Americas) in 1942. This innovative radio network beamed both news and cultural programming live to North and South America in support of cultural diplomacy and Pan Americanism in accordance with President Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy during World War II. - Wikipedia