Old-time radio (often abbreviated as "OTR," also known as the Golden Age of Radio) refers to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the dominant home entertainment medium in the 1950s, with
some programs continuing
into the early 1960s. The origin of radio dramas in the United States is hard to pin down, but
there is evidence of a remote broadcast of a play in 1914 at
Normal College (now California State University at San José), and the first serial radio drama was
an adaptation of a play by Eugene Walter, entitled "The Wolf," which aired in September 1922. Given the age of the programs and the fact that
home reel-to-reel recording started in the 1950s (followed by Philips "compact cassettes" in 1963), it might be surprising that quite a few of
these old shows have survived. Thanks in part to original radio station-sourced recordings made on
aluminum discs, acetates, and glass recordings and other unnamed sources, many radio dramas and newscasts from decades past are
available online, and more are being digitized and restored to this day.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 25, 2009 -
53 comments
