Voice of Firestone

The Voice of Firestone is a long-running radio and television program of classical music. The show featured leading singers in selections from opera and operetta. Originally titled The Firestone Hour, it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network on December 3, 1928 and was later also shown on television starting in 1949. The program was last broadcast in 1963.

The program was sponsored by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and aired on the "Blue Network" of NBC Radio on Monday nights at 8:30pm Eastern Standard Time from its 1928 inception. In 1948, The Voice of Firestone was the first commercial radio program to be carried simultaneously on both AM and FM radio stations. Firestone's 25th anniversary program was broadcast November 30, 1953, and it continued to be heard on radio until 1956.

Regular performers on the series included Eleanor Steber, Richard Crooks, Rise Stevens, Robert Merrill, Thomas Heyward, Igor Gorin, Nadine Conner, Dorothy Warenskjold, and Thomas L. Thomas, among many others.

Firestone sponsored a related television series, The Voice of Firestone Televues, one of the first television series with programming other than news or sports coverage, and according to researchers of television history, may have been the first series in U.S. television history broadcast beyond New York on a network on a regularly scheduled basis. It began on November 29, 1943 on New York's WNBT-TV, when there were very few television sets. First seen on the NBC television network in April 1944, it continued until January 1947 with special interest topics in a documentary film format. The Voice of Firestone radio-TV programs were known not only for classical music, but for their support of organizations such as 4-H and the United Nations.

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