network, the Columbia Broadcasting System or CBS, and avoid possible confusion with the rival network of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which had begun operation in 1943. As a result, this station has no relation to the longtime ABC radio flagship station on 770 that began in 1921 as WJZ, and has operated as WABC since 1953. Over the next 20 years WCBS developed a series of radio soap operas, afternoon talk shows and an all night easy listening music show, Music 'til Dawn hosted by Bob Hall and sponsored by American Airlines. During this time WCBS featured well-known personalities including Arthur Godfrey, future CBS News President Bill Leonard, author Emily Kimbrough and folk singer Oscar Brand. Fear on Trial One controversy involving WCBS emerged in the 1950s. One of its daytime hosts, John Henry Faulk, was part of an anti-blacklisting wing (including CBS newsman Charles Collingwood) that took over leadership of the flagship New York chapter of the broadcasters' union AFTRA. After Faulk and WCBS came under pressure from anti-Communist group Aware, Inc., Faulk and attorney Louis Nizer sued Aware, Inc. for libel, a case often considered one of the key turning points in the battle against McCarthyism. Faulk was supported by fellow CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, who was tipped off to Faulk's plight by Carl Sandburg. According to Murrow biographer Joe Persico, Murrow gave Faulk the money he needed to retain Nizer as his lawyer. Faulk finally won the case in 1963, in the meantime becoming a popular radio personality in his native Texas, and later, a national television personality as a regular in the cast of the country music/humor variety show Hee Haw. WCBS fired Faulk because of declining ratings while he waited for the case to come to trial, but Stanley Cloud and Lynne Olson's book The Murrow Boys asserted that WCBS executive Arthur Hull Hayes admitted on the stand the station's overall ratings, not Faulk's specifically, had slipped. The controversy became the subject of the 1975 CBS television movie Fear on Trial, based in part on Faulk's autobiography of the same name. Time announcement Since 1924, WCBS has been known for announcing the time consistently every three minutes. This is because during the early 20th century, not all listeners had reliable time pieces. They relied on synchronising their clocks up with the radio almost every day. To this day, WCBS announces the time frequently.