Profile America: America’s First Radio Commercial 

Sunday, August 28 — What is believed to be the nation’s first radio commercial was broadcast on the new medium on this date 94 years ago. Station WEAF in New York City carried that first ad — not for soap or automobiles — but for a group of apartment buildings in Queens. The cost was $100 for a 10-minute sales pitch. At the time, there were just 30 stations in the whole country, and only 60,000 households had receivers. By 1929, there were more than 10 times the number of stations, and the number of households with radios surpassed 10 million. Now, there are over 5,800 radio stations in the nation. Some two-thirds of Americans over the age of 12, around 179 million people, access the medium daily. 

Source: American Community Survey

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