Choose the year
22 on air
550 Kilocycles
22 signals on the band in 1947
…static… keep turning, there's a station close by.
The broadcast day
A 1947 network schedule laid over the restored archive — serials after school, comedy at teatime, thriller anthologies after dark. Tune in and you join the programme already in progress, the way you would have then.
Warming the transmitter…
1939 — 1945
Broadcasts made while it was happening: the Armed Forces Radio Service shows sent overseas to the troops, NBC's wartime book dramas, and the BBC bulletins from London.
Talk, testimony and argument
Before the podcast interview there was the microphone taken out into the street, the town-hall debate with the audience answering back, and Murrow cutting the week together from field recordings. Unscripted people, on the air, saying what they thought.
Station log — 18 August
Episodes whose original transmission date is today's, in another decade. Refreshed every morning.
18 August
1942
Mutual
Tuesday
29 min
Murder Clinic was a WOR-Mutual series of 1942–43 which adapted one story a week from a well-known mystery author, drawing on the great fictional detectives in rotation rather than keeping a single lead.
Internet ArchiveMurder_ClinicCondition unmeasured
18 August
1944
Mutual / CBS / NBC
Friday
30 min
It Pays To Be Ignorant began on Mutual in 1942 and moved to CBS and then NBC, running to 1951.
Internet ArchiveItPaysToBeIgnorantCondition unmeasured
18 August
1944
CBS / NBC
Friday
29 min
Originally broadcast on Syndicated, 18 August 1944.
Internet ArchiveOtrBlondieCondition unmeasured
18 August
1946
Syndicated
Sunday
27 min
Broadcast on Syndicated.
Internet ArchiveOTRR_Danger_Dr_Danfield_SinglesCondition unmeasured
18 August
1957
CBS
Sunday
28 min
Originally broadcast on CBS, 18 August 1957. Restored from the Old Time Radio archives.
Internet Archivestan_freberg_showRough but complete · 32 kbps
Seventy thousand recordings
Card catalogue
Filter 483 restored series by decade, network and genre — the kind of query the big audio apps simply don't offer.
523 series on file
Tonight on the network
1930s
The first great serials, live orchestras and the birth of network drama.
1940s
Wartime broadcasts, full-cast theatre and the peak of the anthology.
1950s
Radio's last golden run before television took the living room.
1960s
The final transmissions, syndicated reruns and the long fade-out.
