Ways in
The Doors
Nobody browses eighty thousand things. So here are 32 lit rooms — a mood, an hour, a name, a year. Push one open and the archive answers with everything behind it.
Door one · 1930s
The Night of the Martians
Orson Welles, the Mercury Theatre and the panic broadcast of 30 October 1938 — plus everything else that aired that Halloween season.
Push it open
Under 15 minutes
I Have Twelve Minutes
Short transfers only. A single bulletin, a serial chapter, a song and out.
Open
30 – 60 minutes
One Commute
Half-hour broadcasts — the standard length of American network radio, and the length of most journeys to work.
Open
An hour or more
Something To Fall Asleep To
Slow talk, late music and long unhurried programmes with no sudden noises.
Opentrue crime
Crime Before Podcasts
Detective radio: the form true crime grew out of, seventy years before the download.
Open
horror
Lights Out
Horror written for the dark, when radio was the only screen and it was inside your head.
Open
comedy
Before the Laugh Track
Comedy played to a live studio audience with nowhere to hide.
Opensci fi
Rockets and Ray Guns
Science fiction from the years the future still sounded like brass and static.
Open
1920s
The First Voices
The oldest surviving transfers in the archive — broadcasting before it knew what it was.
Open
1940s
The War Years
1940s broadcasting, from bulletin desks to variety shows recorded for troops overseas.
Openuk
Not America
Series broadcast outside the United States — Britain, Australia, Canada and beyond.
Open
australia
The Australian Hour
Serials and drama made in Australia, much of it produced for syndication across the country.
Open
canada
The Northern Signal
Canadian broadcasting: a public network built across an enormous, thinly populated country.
Open
adventure
Ride Out
Westerns and adventure serials — the biggest popular genre of the era, at full gallop.
Open
Under 15 minutes
The Daytime
Serials made for an audience working at home, fifteen minutes at a time, five days a week.
Opennews
The Bulletin Desk
News as it broke, read by people who did not yet know how the story ended.
Openmusic
The Band Remotes
Live music picked up from ballrooms and hotels and thrown onto the network, late at night.
Opendrama
The Stage on the Air
Theatre and anthology drama written or adapted for the microphone.
Openfamily
The Children's Hour
Programmes made for children, broadcast in the hour before dinner.
Opensport
Sport, Live
Play-by-play from the years the only way to follow it was to sit and listen.
Open
The whole archive
Christmas on the Dial
Seasonal broadcasts across every genre — the year's biggest night for radio.
OpenThe whole archive
Sherlock Holmes
Every surviving Holmes transfer in the archive, across networks and decades.
OpenThe whole archive
Orson Welles
The most restless voice in American radio, wherever it turns up.
Open1940s
The Invasion
Coverage of the Normandy landings and the days around 6 June 1944.
Open
The whole archive
Fireside
Presidential broadcasts and the speeches that came into the room rather than down from a platform.
Openhorror
Ghost Stories
Hauntings, seances and the supernatural, played straight.
Open
The whole archive
In Court
Trials, hearings and courtroom drama, real and staged.
Open1930s
The Thirties
Depression-era broadcasting: cheap entertainment for people who had nothing else.
Open1950s
The Last Decade
Radio in the 1950s, as television took the audience and the budgets away.
Open
An hour or more
The Long Haul
Hour-plus recordings — full evenings, marathons, unbroken broadcasts.
Open
talk
People Talking
Interviews, panels and street microphones: the ancestors of the modern chat show.
Open30 – 60 minutes
The Documentary Hour
Reported features and docudrama, made when the form was still being invented.
Open