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,
Bing Crosby Entertains Christmas alone. After a brief sequence of events, during which Crosby cheered up another lonely soul, “Silent Night” is heard being sung outside his quarters as the students have come back to serenade him. Crosby opened the door and joined in, singing a solo as the show ended. Thousands of enthusiastic letters were received and “Silent Night” became part of Crosby’s Christmas show for the next quarter of a century. The show’s producer, Burt McMurtrie, recalled the occasion when speaking in 1979. “Bing sang “Silent Night” there for the first time. All by himself. He sang it like nobody—I mean,