Irving Gitlin, CBS vice president of public affairs programming, originally conceived the series as broad topic compilations based on Mark Sullivan's writings, Our Times. Burton Benjamin, whose career at CBS news began as the series' producer and progressed to executive producer, radically revised the concept. He stressed compilations focused on one man's impact on his times, or an event (such as "Patton and the Third Army" or "Woodrow Wilson: The Fight for Peace"). These were to be interspersed with more traditional biographical sketches of individual lives (such as "Mussolini," "Gandhi," and "Admiral Byrd"). Ben­jamin also added a mix of "back of the book" stories, or historical episodes receiving scant attention in English-language history texts and unfamiliar to the general public in the United States. These "essays" dealt with individuals, such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ("The Incredible Turk"), and topics, such as the Kiska campaign ("The Frozen War"), and the Danish resistance movement ("Sabotage"), both lesser-known fronts of World War II. The series' researchers, both literary and film, were instructed to pursue detailed factual information that would add the unknown to the familiar. Information such as the $8.50 price levied on those who wished to watch Goering's wedding parade or the details of Rommel's visit to his family on D-Day surrounded primary story elements. With the assistance of associate producer Isaac Kleinerman, editor and film researcher for Victory at Sea (NBC, 1952-53) and Project XX (NBC, 1954-73), the series established a successful formula by stressing pivotal dramatic incidents in battles, conflicts, political uprisings, and the repercussions of actions by great (though always male) leaders. Accounting for the many battle-oriented programs, Benjamin admitted that the series was  "as much a show biz show as any dramatic half-hour." But when the availability of dramatic and unusual footage of personalities existed for an historical period or event, such as "Paris in the Twenties" and "The Olympics," the unit produced broad-canvas compilation films. On a weekly basis, audiences stayed with the series, expecting the unique and unfamiliar even in recognizable topics.

     When the series started to look familiar, Benjamin revised. In the third season the series shifted to the individual in history and more contemporary topics. The biographical form slowly expanded to contemporary persons in the arts and sciences, law, and politics while giving "eyewitnesses" a more complex role in the compilation films. The striking contribution by German Captain Willi Bratgi to the episode "The Remagen Bridge," dramatically describing how a U.S. shell changed history's course by accidentally severing a detonation cable and thus preventing the destruction of the allies• last crossing-point over the Rhine in March 1945, led the production team to search out other such figures with strong emotional and informational ties to the past. From 1961 through the series' end, the most innovative compilations used central, compelling personalities to weave a dramatic structure. These included Countess Nina Von Stauffenberg and Captain Axel Von Dem Bussche in "The Plots against Hitler," and Mine Okubo, author of Citizen 13360 in "The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame." But as the series progressed, contemporary documentaries gradually outnumbered compilation films. Contemporary documentaries depicted the enduring value of democracy's struggle against communism, the modernization of the United States, and the pioneering human spirit facing adversity.

     Although accepted by the public, a group of 28 of the contemporary documentaries shown over the 9 years were greeted with criticism. These depicted U.S. military defense systems and hardware  and  functioned as publicity releases for the Department  of  Defense, and were criticized for their simple equation of liberty with technology. A dozen of these documentaries dealt with aviation, space exploration, or plane and rocket development because of Cronkite's interest in these topics. By filming documentaries such as "Vertijet" and "SAC: Aloft and Below," the producers received extraordinary military assistance in declassifying footage in government archives for the compilation films. Still, Benjamin strove for journalistic integrity in a politicized atmosphere, even canceling biographies on General MacArthur and Curtis LeMay when the military requested final script approval.

     Social and political change overseas dominated the list of contemporary subjects. Although evident in the compilation films, the series' anticommunist ideology and commitment to democratic modernization was blatant in programs such as "Poland on a Tightrope" and "Sweden: Trouble in Paradise." Periodically, the producers sought new approaches to the contemporary documentary, in response to warning critical reception and audience desire for the dramatic. When the NFL football player Sam Huff was outfitted with a microphone and transmitter, in "The Violent World of Sam Huff," the landscape of television documentaries shifted. Other experiments in quasi-cinema-verite documentaries, such as "Rhodes Scholar" and "Duke Ellington Swings through Japan," illustrated new approaches for television. But strong diversions from the series' dominant form and content, such as the grim Appalachian conditions depicted in "Depressed Area, U.S.A.," were rare and usually came from freelance film directors such as Willard Van Dyke and Leo Seltzer.

     CBS executives admired the series' meticulous production process. The producers allocated 24 weeks for a program's production, with each stage such as literary research, film research, location shooting, editing, script writing, and music allocated a specific time parameter on a flow chart. By the sixth season, the series ran itself, allowing Benjamin to work simultaneously on other CBS news projects. Into this production mechanism, Benjamin periodically added the attraction of established journalists and historians, including John Toland, Robert Shaplen, Sidney Hertzberg, and Hanson Baldwin. Although Alfredo Antonini composed music for 50 percent of the programs, Franz Waxman, Glen Paxton, George Kleinsinger, George Antheil, and others contributed original scores, working with Antonini and the CBS Orchestra within strict time limitations. This would be the last time a documentary series turned consistently to talent outside a network.

     The sponsor, Prudential, supported the series' use of these film, literary, and musical figures, but became a restraint on the series' creative potential. The company approved and prioritized each year's topics, submitted by Benjamin and Kleinerman, and admitted not wanting controversial programs on social and religious topics. The sponsor-and the Department of Defense-also expected a conservative and uncritical representation of military activity, past and present.

Certain subjects, such as gambling, the labor movement, and U.S. relations with Canada, were rejected by Prudential. Even though Benjamin was aware of the corporate perspective, he fought several years for the approval to air biographies  of  Lenin,  Trotsky  and the American socialist Norman Thomas. Prudential directly limited the boundaries of subjects and investigation of any issue they deemed potentially upsetting to a large audience. Prudential withdrew sponsorship after the ninth season, when sports programming reduced the number of available time slots to 18, and the production unit's value to new directions in news and documentary could not assure Prudential the recognizable and dramatic compilation film and documentary subjects deemed suitable for its audience.