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 Irish-American. His father was of English descent; an ancestor, Simon Crosby, emigrated to America in the 17th century. The first Crosby in America was the English immigrant Simon Crosby, who was a Puritan from Cambridgeshire, England. Through an entirely paternal line Bing Crosby is descended from Simon Crosby, who emigrated from England to New England in the 1630s during the Puritan migration to New England. Through another line, also on his father's side, Crosby is descended from "Mayflower" passenger William Brewster (c. 1567 – April 10, 1644). On November 8, 1937, after Lux Radio Theatre's adaptation of "She Loves Me