One of the most often asked questions I get is, “Where do I get my old time radio shows?” I have answered this on the show a couple of times, but have never formally addressed the question. Today I am going to do that:
I first became interested in the golden age of radio in the early 1980s. However, even before that I was listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater which aired on the radio from 1974 to 1982. In the 80s to get the shows you had to know a guy. All of that changed with the propagation of the internet. Telnet became a thing and there were newsgroups dedicated to the hobby. People would share their collections. You had to have some special archival software to unlock them and to download a single episode could take several hours (even though the files are only a few kilobytes). As the internet grew so did the hobby and I bought my first full collection of Gunsmoke on Ebay in 1996 on 5 CDs. I loved this and at the time I had one heck of a commute to work. These stories were my entertainment.
The next big change also came in 1996. The Internet Archive was born. They began archiving the Internet itself. Like newspapers, the content published on the web was temporary – but unlike newspapers, no one was saving it. Today they have 25+ years of web history accessible through the Wayback Machine. But that was not the end of it. They also began to allow collections to be stored on their servers. This included everything from famous art to radio recordings. It was from here that getting OTR shows became as simple as a couple of mouse clicks.
Here is a quote from their about page: https://archive.org/about/
The Internet Archive serves millions of people each day and is one of the top 300 websites in the world. A single copy of the Internet Archive library collection occupies 99+ Petabytes of server space (and we store at least 2 copies of everything). We are funded through donations, grants, and by providing web archiving and book digitization services for our partners.
So, now you know where I get all of the programs you hear on the show. Everything OTR is there and all you have to know is the name. Just open the Google machine and type the name of the show followed by the word archive and the world of OTR is open to you. (example: “ron’s amazing stories archive” will get you the first 100 episodes of my podcast.)
Here are some example OTR links on The Internet Archive:
Gunsmoke – A 1950’s western drama.
X-Minus One – A 1950’s science fiction drama
The Mysterious Traveler – A 1950’s horror anthology series.
This Week’s Podcast:
On the podcast this week we have something special. We are going to take a close look at the old time radio series The Columbia Workshop. This was a unique show that was one of the major drivers of modern radio. You can listen to this podcast on Thursday at Ron’s Amazing Stories, download it from Apple Podcasts, stream it on Stitcher Radio or on the mobile version of Spotify. Do you prefer the radio? We are heard every Thursday at 10:00 pm and Sunday Night at 11:00 PM (EST) on AMFM247.COM. Check your local listing or find the station closest to you at this link
Your Stories:
Do you have a story that you would like to share on the podcast or the blog? Head to the main website, click on Story Submission, leave your story, give it a title, and please tell me where you’re from. I will read it on the show if I can.
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