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,
This Is Bing Crosby cost and for Crosby it offered the chance of a substantial long-term capital gain on the shares. The first show was broadcast on November 22, 1948, initially in the 9:45–10:00 a.m. slot, and a number of different stations took the show with a variety of sponsors as well as Vacuum Foods. Between records, which were mostly Crosby recordings, the singer and Ken Carpenter talked of frozen orange juice, as an acceptable alternate, and Minute Maid became a household word with sales in excess of $100 million within a few years. Crosby’s financial adviser, Basil Grillo, set up Bing Crosby Entertainment