People love to talk about standing up to legal bullies, but lawyers are expensive. Copyright law is extremely friendly to plaintiffs and generous in terms of damages: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html
CBS would totally show up in a small town if they knew that they had a good chance of winning. Their lawyers are already on salary. It doesn't cost them anything and they will get a lot of money. They may also just try to get the venue changed. In fact, it is their duty to enforce their copyright claims, or they risk their ability to protect their IP in the future. So, it's unwise to do the equivalent of coating yourself in butter and serving yourself up to be devoured by Viacom IP attorneys.
In the 2019 case of Epic Games, Inc. v. Lucas in which a 14 year old boy counter-claimed a copyright claim filed by Epic over the defendant's posting of Youtube footage involving cheats in Fortnite. While the case did not go all the way, Epic did successfully extract a punitive settlement from the defendant. If he had not counter claimed, the lawsuit might have never happened, or they could have settled it before it was filed.