The radio was already a popular consumer item in the years before the Nazis came to power. 1929, for example, saw the greatest growth in a single year in the percentage of households in Germany that purchased a set. However, the overall percentage of homes with a radio remained relatively low until the mid-1930s. Several years of sustained growth of over 10% per annum meant that over half of all German households owned a radio by the start of the war. The radio was important as a political instrument for spreading information and propaganda that the regime wished the population to consume, but it also remained an important venue for entertainment by regularly broadcasting popular music and dramatic and comedic shows.