Christmas on the Air
Christmas Comedy
The Christmas episodes of the great comedy hours, when the writers were allowed a tree.
Items
135
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
The Radio Planet presents
Christmason the Air
The Christmas broadcast was radio’s one unrepeatable night. Sponsors bought an hour, the writers were handed a tree, and most of it went out live and vanished. What survives is here — in air order, by season, with the network and the date the archive itself recorded.
537
Broadcasts
48
Shelves
46
Christmas seasons
7
Collections
Season by season
Spend Christmas in another year
Each season gathers every recording that survives from that December, across every network — the comedy hour, the carols, the news at six and the appeal at the end.
The collections
Or pick your kind of Christmas
Christmas on the Air
Christmas Drama & Anthology
Christmas Carols, ghost stories and one-hour prestige plays from the anthology houses.
Items
189
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
Christmas on the Air
Carols & Christmas Music
Carols, choirs, dance bands and the V-Disc pressings sent to the forces.
Items
110
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
Christmas on the Air
Christmas for Children
Santa, Cinnamon Bear country and the children's hours built for Christmas morning.
Items
37
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
Christmas on the Air
Christmas at War
Christmas from the fronts: AFRS shows, Command Performance and greetings home.
Items
91
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
Christmas on the Air
News, Kings & Presidents
Christmas messages, year-in-review broadcasts and the news as it stood on Christmas Day.
Items
67
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
Christmas on the Air
Christmas Crime & Mystery
The Christmas cases: private eyes, shadows and murders under the tree.
Items
30
Extent
Christmas shelf
Internet ArchivePublic domain
The Christmas hours
The shows that made Christmas an event
Every surviving Christmas edition of the big network hours, in air order.
Christmas at war
Sent to the fronts
AFRS Christmas programming, Command Performance and the V-Disc carols pressed for servicemen and never sold.
One night only
Aired once, never repeated
Specials, appeals, promos and station oddities, gathered by decade.
More shelves
The rest of the tree
Smaller runs: mysteries, children's hours, sports newsreels and year-in-review broadcasts.
Provenance
Every broadcast here streams from the Internet Archive’s public-domain collection of 500 old-time-radio Christmas shows, preserved from transcription discs, V-Disc pressings and off-air home recordings. Titles, air dates, networks and running times are the archive’s own metadata. Nothing is dramatised, reconstructed or generated, and the shelf cards are letterpress-set type rather than invented artwork.