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 wear the toupee that CBS and NBC required for his live audience shows—he preferred a hat. He could also record short promotions for his latest investment, the world's first frozen orange juice, sold under the brand name Minute Maid. This investment allowed him to make more money by finding a loophole where the IRS couldn't tax him at a 77% rate. Murdo MacKenzie of Bing Crosby Enterprises had seen a demonstration of the German Magnetophon in June 1947—the same device that Jack Mullin had brought back from Radio Frankfurt with 50 reels of tape, at the end of the war.