Originally titled The Firestone Hour,[1] it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network on December 3, 1928[2] and was later also shown on television starting in 1949.
The program was sponsored by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and aired on the "Blue Network" of NBC Radio on Monday nights at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time from its 1928 inception.
[1] NBC dropped the program after the June 7, 1954, broadcast, but ABC immediately began to air it beginning with the following week's installment.
First seen on the rudimentary NBC television network in April 1944 (New York, Schenectady and Philadelphia), it continued until January 1947 with special interest topics in a documentary film format.
When The Voice of Firestone arrived on television in the fall of 1949, NBC simulcast the show on radio and TV, one of the first programs to use that technology.
ABC tried to appease the fans with Music for a Summer Night, a copy of the show minus Firestone, but the results were not favorable.
Featured among the eight regular singers of the Firestone Chorus were Lorraine Donahue, William Toole (baritone), Russell Hammar (tenor), Donald Craig (bass), and Bill Metcalf.