Helen Sioussat

Helen Sioussat papers are housed in the Library of American Broadcasting at the University of Maryland libraries. Donated in 1995, the collection includes citations, correspondence, financial records, manuscripts, photographs, press releases, transcripts, and other items.

Table Talk with Helen Sioussat was "the first question-and-answer discussion program on CBS." It was broadcast from a CBS-TV studio in Grand Central Station in 1941-1943 on experimental station W2XAB, and its format worked well enough that it was essentially copied in later talk programs.

In 1936, Edward R. Murrow, director of talks at CBS hired Sioussat to be his assistant. The following year, she replaced Murrow when he left that post to go to London. After a simultaneous realignment of duties at the network, she became responsible for all CBS non-commercial public affairs programs. Sioussat helped to formulate policies under the new setup, including fairness in granting air time to those who sought it. Her duties also included editing Talks, a quarterly digest published by CBS. Acceptance did not come easily in the male-dominated atmosphere that existed then. A vice president refused to authorize letterhead and business cards showing her as department head until the CBS legal department overruled him. When a male assistant was hired, he began the job at a higher salary than hers. She received raises later, but that initial discrepancy rankled her.

Sioussat was married twice and divorced twice by 1934. A feature article in The Baltimore Sun in 1953 described her as "an Elsa Maxwell type party-giver and party-goer".

Helen Johnson Doyle Sioussat (February 11, 1902 - December 2, 1995) was a network executive in the early days of American television, serving as CBS radio's director of talks and public affairs from 1937 to 1958. She created, and was the host of, the first roundtable discussion program on television.