WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

U.S. Census Bureau Logo.

FIRST RADIO COMMERCIAL

Profile AmericaFriday, August 28th. What is believed to be the nation's first radio commercial was broadcast on the new medium on this date 93 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 6,700 radio stations in the nation. Some two-thirds of Americans over the age of 12, around 117 million people, access the medium daily. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 2333
Content of commercial: http://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160265990/first-radio-commercial-hit-airwaves-90-years-ago 
Early radio and household statistics: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 796 
Radio stations/NAICS 51511:  http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table 
Daily reach: http://www.rab.com/public/marketingGuide/DataSheet.cfm?id=9

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

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