Ultimately, however, after nine months of wrangling, NBC agreed to take the order, for an enormous sum, over $1 million, and introduce its first sponsored serial program—indeed probably the first network “show” that wasn’t musical or educational. It agreed to sell thirteen weeks at 7 p.m. on its farm team Blue network, which, given Pepsodent’s dire financial straits, was effectively a bet on Pepsodent itself. “Never in the history of radio,” said one commentator, “had there been such an order as that.”

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 306