inluminent

A bit of history for you:

The first advertising-sponsored radio program debuted on February 12, 1924. The show, “The Eveready Hour,” was sponsored by the National Carbon Company. Sponsored programs, which would later give way to spot advertising, provided much of the economic impetus behind the growth of radio and television. Although sponsored programs had virtually disappeared in television and radio by the 1970s, corporate sponsorships became a common source of funding for Web sites in the mid-1990s.

Courtesy of The History Channel.

Someone do the math for me… how long ago was that? And is it all that different from what Steven Heyer is recommending?