15 Minutes with Bing Crosby for radio as for recording, he's a cinch for ether popularity." The nationwide shows continued daily (except Sundays) on a sustaining basis until October 31, 1931 from station WABC in New York. Harry Von Zell was the announcer. Freddie Rich led the orchestra after the first week. Russ Columbo was broadcasting for NBC at 11:30 p.m. each night as competition for Bing with "Variety" noting "Scrap between NBC & CBS over Russ Columbo and Bing Crosby is getting warm." Crosby's popularity soon attracted a sponsor - the American Tobacco Company - and rather than Lucky Strike cigarettes, the company's president,
The Bing Crosby Show (1954–1956) sad let-down. Instead of the carefree, casual banter which Bing and Ken used to exchange so amusingly, the opening programs of this season's Crosby series found Bing stumbling through inept monologues... Finally, this Crosby series is being broadcast sustaining (and how could one better epitomize the plight of network radio than by the single sorry fact that the whole high-powered CBS sales staff was unable to find a sponsor for a man whose products are still top sellers in record shops and movie houses?)... Estimated production cost: $2,700 per 15-minute program." The show ran until December 31st 1956 without a