They say the 'Golden Age of Radio' died around 1962 when Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar went off the air, effectively bringing to a close a 30-year era of great drama, comedy, and variety programming as it all began migrating to the new medium of television. Sure, there were some great shows after that time, most notably CBS Radio Mystery Theatre (1974-1982), National Public Radio's efforts like the adaptations of the first three Star Wars films between 1981 and 1994, and Bradbury 13 (1984), as well as British contributions like The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy (1979), but those were niche productions at best.
For those who loved old time radio (OTR), shows were hard to come by, except as nostalgia programs and fairly expensive cassette and CD collections published by the likes of Radio Spirits. Today, thanks to the Internet, OTR programs are enjoying a resurgence in popularity as collectors are digitizing their old tapes and rare transcription discs into more accessible formats like mp3. A volunteer organization called the Old Time Radio Researchers' Group has made it their mission to catalog classic radio shows and assemble what they consider to be definitive collections of the best recordings all episodes known to exist of selected programs. Their goal is nothing less than to preserve the as much of OTR programming as possible. The best part is these 'OTRR Certified' collections are available free for the downloading. More about that later.
That any of these classic shows survived at all is truly amazing. The producers of these shows generally saw them as being of little or no value, other than as a vehicle for advertising. The only recordings that were made were transcription discs that allowed shows produced on the East Coast to be re-broadcast a few hours later on the West Coast. Copies of these discs would also sometimes be sent to advertisers along with an invoice as proof that their spots had aired as agreed upon. By far, the largest publisher and distributor of recorded radio shows was the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, which aired them on its stations at overseas bases and sent them out in morale packages to be played over loudspeakers at more remote bases and on ships at sea. Thankfully, many of those discs have survived.
The producers themselves valued the programs themselves so little that in some instances, tapes of shows were erased immediately after broadcast because the recording tape was deemed to be of more value than the content it contained. The 1950s BBC sci-fi series Journey Into Space was thought to be lost for several decades until a set of misfiled transcription discs was discovered in the late 1980s. And the few episodes that still remain of The Avengers, a South African radio adaptation of the classic BBC TV series, exist only because fans of the show recorded them off the air and later shared the the tapes. It was not even standard practice to copyright the productions, which puts them in public domain today, making it legal to copy and trade them freely.
So where can you download these great shows? Here are a few sites that offer them at little or no cost:
Old Time Radio Mystery Theater www.mysteryshows.com offers some 2,000 shows for free and another 40,000 or so episodes in the members' section for a one-time minimum donation of $10. Memberships are free for the visually impaired or those who simply can't afford it. Members are also encouraged to contribute to the collection by uploading shows from their own libraries. And don't let the site name fool you; it contains far more than just mystery shows.
Archive.org, the Web's equivalent of the great library at Alexandria, has an extensive collection of vintage radio shows at http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio. Content is organized alphabetically and is available for download and streaming. Of course, old radio shows are just the tip of this site's iceberg. It also contains music, movies, and much more, all for free under Creative Commons license.
The Monster Club http://www.themonsterclub.com/ offers a collection of some 500 macabre and mysterious shows, organized thematically. It's a great place to graze if you're into that genre but aren't interested in acquiring entire collections. You must sign up for a free membership in order to download shows.
The Radio Archive http://radioarchive.cc offers a vast library of old and new BBC radio shows via peer-to-peer download. You must create a free account and have a bit torrent client installed to access the shows.
Happy listening!
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