The world's first TV commercial aired on the July 1, 1941, on America's NBC affiliate WNBT for the Bulova Watch Company.
The first commercial for Bulova watches aired before a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball game and cost $9 for 20 seconds. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, the average 30-second commercial aired during the Super Bowl today costs $2.4 million.
During the 1950s, cigarette advertising became an important form of TV revenue. When cigarette commercials were banned from TV in 1971, an estimated $220 million annually in advertising revenue was lost.
In 1952, ad executive Rosser Reeves organized Dwight Eisenhower's presidential campaign to include commercials to air during TV's most popular shows, including "I Love Lucy."
In 1999, the Minneapolis Star Tribune estimated that for every four hours of American commercial TV programming, roughly 100 commercials are shown.
The National Institute on Media and the Family says that during the average year, an American child views about 40,000 commercials.