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Old-Time Radio (OTR) and the '''Golden Age of Radio''' refer to a period of Radio Programming 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 late 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, when radio was dominant and the airwaves were filled with a variety of radio formats and genres, people regularly tuned in to their favorite radio programs. In fact, according to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. The end of this period coincided with Music Radio becoming the dominant radio form and is often marked in the United States by the final CBS broadcasts of '' Suspense '' and '' Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar '' on September 30 , 1962 . __TOC__ .]] ORIGINS Radio content in the Golden Age of Radio had its origins in Audio Theatre . Audio theatre began in the 1880s and 1890s with audio recordings of musical acts and other Vaudeville . These were sent to people by means of telephone and, later, through Phonograph cylinders and discs. Visual elements, such as effects and sight gags, were adapted to have sound equivalents. In additions, visual objects and scenery were converted to have audio descriptions. On , 2006 Then, after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912, radio for communications went into vogue. Radio was especially important during World War I , since it was a primary source of communication for both sides. Then, after the war and before radio regulation, numerous radio stations began starting up and setting the standard for later radio programs. The first radio news program was broadcast on August 31 , 1920 on the station 8MK in Detroit, Michigan . This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial radio station in the United States , KDKA , being established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . In 1922, the first regular entertainment programs were broadcast. A highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1 , 1923 on the Los Angeles station KHJ . TYPES OF PROGRAMS During the Golden Age of Radio, radio featured genres and formats popular in other forms of American entertainment—adventure, comedy, drama, horror, mystery, musical variety, romance, thrillers—along with classical music concerts, Big Band remotes, farm reports, news and commentary, panel discussions, quiz shows, sidewalk interviews, sports broadcasts, talent shows and weather forecasts. radio show ''You Can't Do Business with Hitler''.]] In the late 1920s, the sponsored musical feature was the most popular program format. Commercial messages were regarded as intrusive, so these shows usually displayed the sponsor's name in the title, as evidenced by such programs as '' The A&P Gypsies '', '' Acousticon Hour '', '' Champion Spark Plug Hour '', '' The Clicquot Club Eskimos '', ''The Flit Soldiers'', ''The Fox Fur Trappers'', ''The Goodrich Zippers'', ''The Ingram Shavers'', '' The Ipana Troubadors '', ''The Planters Pickers'', ''The Silvertown Cord Orchestra'' (featuring the Silver Masked Tenor), ''The Sylvania Foresters'' and ''The Yeast Foamers''. During the 1930s and 1940s, the leading orchestras were heard often through big band remotes, and NBC's '' Monitor '' continued such remotes well in the 1950s by broadcasting live music from New York City jazz clubs to rural America. Classical Music programs on the air included '' The Voice Of Firestone '' and '' The Bell Telephone Hour ''. The Metropolitan Opera was also featured in weekly broadcasts of complete Opera s, then sponsored by Texaco . The broadcasts, now sponsored by the Toll Brothers , continue to this day on NPR and are one of the few examples of live classical music still broadcast on radio. One of the most notable of all classical music radio programs of the Golden Age of Radio featured the celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra , which had been created especially for him. At that time, nearly all classical musicians and critics considered Toscanini the greatest living maestro. Top comedy talents surfed the airwaves for many years: Fred Allen , Jack Benny , Victor Borge , Fanny Brice , Billie Burke , Bob Burns , Judy Canova , Jimmy Durante , Phil Harris , Bob Hope , Groucho Marx , Jean Shepherd , Red Skelton and Ed Wynn . More laughter was generated on such shows as '' Abbott And Costello '', '' Amos 'n' Andy '', '' Burns And Allen '', '' Easy Aces '', '' Ethel And Albert '', '' Fibber McGee And Molly '', '' The Great Gildersleeve '', '' The Halls Of Ivy '', '' Meet Corliss Archer '' and '' Meet Millie ''. Radio comedy ran the gamut from the small town humor of '', and other memorable parodies were presented by such satirists as Spike Jones , Stoopnagle And Budd , Stan Freberg and Bob And Ray . British comedy reached American shores in a major assault when NBC carried '' The Goon Show '' in the mid-1950s. Some shows originated as stage productions: Clifford Goldsmith's play ''What a Life'' was reworked into NBC's popular, long-run '' The Aldrich Family '' (1939-1953) with the familiar Catchphrases "Henry! Henry Aldrich!", followed by Henry's answer, "Coming, Mother!". Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway hit, ''You Can't Take It with You'' (1936), became a weekly situation comedy heard on Mutual (1944) with Everett Sloane and later on NBC (1951) with Walter Brennan . Other shows were adapted from comic strips, such as '' Blondie '', '' The Gumps '', '' Li'l Abner '', '' Little Orphan Annie '', '' Popeye The Sailor '', '' Red Ryder '', '' Reg'lar Fellers '', '' Terry And The Pirates '' and ''Tillie the Toiler''. Bob Montana's redheaded teen of comic strips and comic books was heard on radio's '' Archie Andrews '' from 1943 to 1953. ''The Timid Soul'' was a 1941-1942 comedy based on cartoonist H.T. Webster's famed Casper Milquetoast character, and Robert L. Ripley's Believe It Or Not! was adapted to several different radio formats during the 1930s and 1940s. When daytime serials began in the early 1930s (the first soap opera was introduced in 1930 on Chicago 's WGN ), they became known as Soap Opera s because many were sponsored by soap products and detergents. The line-up of late afternoon adventure serials included ''Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders'', '' The Cisco Kid '', '' Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy '', '' Captain Midnight '', and ''The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters''. Badges, rings, decoding devices and other Radio Premiums offered on these adventure shows were often allied with a sponsor's product, requiring the young listeners to mail in a box top from a breakfast cereal or other Proof Of Purchase . Outstanding radio dramas were presented on such programs as '' 26 By Corwin '', ''NBC Short Story'', '' Arch Oboler's Plays '' and '' CBS Radio Workshop ''. '' Lux Radio Theater '' and '' The Screen Guild Theater '' presented adaptations of Hollywood movies, performed before a live audience, usually with cast members from the original films. '' Suspense '', '' Escape '', '' The Mysterious Traveler '' and '' Inner Sanctum Mysteries '' were popular thriller anthology series. Leading writers who created original material for radio included Norman Corwin , Carlton E. Morse , David Goodis , Archibald MacLeish , Arthur Miller , Arch Oboler , Rod Serling and Irwin Shaw . HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL RADIO RECORDINGS IN THE UNITED STATES Radio stations In the beginning of the Golden Age, American Radio Network programs were presented almost exclusively live, since the national networks prohibited the airing of recorded programs until the late 1940s. As a result, prime-time shows would be performed twice for both coasts. However, some programs were recorded as they were broadcast during this period, typically for Syndicated programs or for advertisers to have their own copy. When the networks became more open to airing recorded programs in the 1950s and 1960s, recordings became more common. Recordings of radio programs were typically made at a Radio Network 's studios, since the expense and expertise of making a recording was usually more than a local station was capable of handling. (Recordings required special equipment and trained technicians who had to monitor the recording while it was being made.) However, there are some surviving recordings produced by Affiliate stations.1 Armed Forces Radio Service is interviewed on Armed Forces Radio Service during World War II .]] The Armed Forces Radio Services (AFRS) has its origins in the War Department 's quest to improve troop morale. This quest began with short-wave broadcasts of educational and information programs to troops in 1940. In 1941, the War Department began issuing "Buddy Kits" (B-Kits) to departing troops, which comprised radios, 78 RPM shellac records, and electrical transcription disks of radio shows. However, with the entrance of the United States into World War II, the War Department decided that it needed to improve the quality and quantity of its offerings. This began with the broadcasting of its own original variety programs. ''Command Performance'' became the first of these, when it was produced for the first time on March 1 1942 . On May 26 1942 , the Armed Forces Radio Services was formally established. Originally, its programming comprised network radio shows with the commercials removed. However, it soon began producing other original programming, such as ''Mail Call'', ''G.I. Journal'', ''Jubilee'', and ''G.I. Jive.'' At its peak in 1945, the Service produced around twenty hours of original programming each week. After the war, the AFRS continued providing programming to troops in Europe. In addition, it also provided programming for future wars that the United States was involved in. It survives today as a component of the American Forces Network . All of the shows aired by the AFRS during the Golden Age were recorded onto electrical transcription disks and shipped to stations, in order to be broadcast to troops overseas. People in the United States rarely ever heard programming from the AFRS,2 although AFRS recordings of Golden Age network shows were occasionally broadcast on some domestic stations beginning in the 1950s. HISTORY OF HOME RADIO RECORDINGS IN THE UNITED STATES There was some home recording of radio in the 1930s and early 1940s. Home recording at that time could typically only be performed by home disk recorders, which were only capable of storing five minutes of a radio program per side on a seven-inch record. As a result of the short durations of these records and the expense of the recorders, home recording was uncommon during this period. The lack of suitable home recording equipment was somewhat relieved in 1943 with the introduction of home tape recorders using Scotch 100 tape. However, the quality of recordings made from these devices was far below professional levels. In fact, home recording of radio programs did not become common until around 1950, when affordable reel-to-reel tape recorders were introduced to the market.3 RECORDING MEDIUMS Electrical transcription disks '' radio broadcast by Orson Welles on electrical transcription disk.]] When radio stations first began recording programs, they recorded onto Records called "electrical transcription disks" (ET). Originally, these disks varied in both size and composition; although, they were typically bare aluminum. However, by the mid-1930s, sixteen inch aluminum-based disks coated with cellulose nitrate lacquer and playing at a speed of 33 1/3 RPM became the standard. (These had been invented in 1932 by RCA Victor.) These disks were recorded using the "hill and dale" process, in contrast to the side-to-side recording method used by commercial recording studios. Disks could store fifteen minutes of a show on each side, allowing a thirty minute program to be stored on one side of two separate disks. The disks would deteriorate rapidly on each playing, allowing only a few playbacks before being destroyed. During World War II , aluminum became a necessary material for the war effort. This caused alternatives to aluminum to be used for electrical transcription disks, since aluminum was hard to come by. As a result, glass became the most common material used for disks between the years of 1942 and 1945. 4 Magnetic wire recording In the late 1940s, Wire Recording became a medium for recording radio programs, since it was less expensive to make recordings with and did not have the strict time limits of electrical transcription disks. In addition, the fidelity of these recordings was comparable to the 78s of the time. Reel-to-reel tape recording Magnetic wire recording was replaced by the introduction of the Reel-to-reel Audio Tape in the early 1950s. Tape had several advantages over earlier recording methods. It could achieve higher fidelity than both electrical transcription disks and magnetic wire. In addition, it could be edited easier using a process known as splicing. Bing Crosby became the first major proponent of this medium for radio and was the first to use it for his radio show, when he used it for a demonstration program in 1947. AVAILABILITY OF RECORDINGS A relatively few surviving programs were recorded off the air ( Aircheck s), usually at a Recording Studio , since home recording equipment was uncommon during the first couple decades of the Golden Age. Most of the Golden Age programs in circulation among collectors – whether on tape, CD or MP3 – originated with these ETs. In addition, many Golden Age shows have survived only in edited AFRS versions, while others exist in both original and AFRS formats. LEGACY as "Harold the Spider"]] In the United States , radio comedy and drama gets relatively little airplay apart from satellite and Internet radio, but it continues full strength on British and Irish stations, and to a lesser degree in Canada . Regular broadcasts of radio plays are also heard in South Africa , Australia , New Zealand and other countries. Vintage shows and new audio productions in America are accessible more on recordings and by satellite and web broadcasters rather than over conventional AM and FM radio. There are, however, several radio theatre series still in production, usually airing on Sunday nights in the United States. These include original series such as Imagination Theatre and a radio adaptation of The Twilight Zone , as well as rerun compilations such as the popular daily series When Radio Was and USA Radio Network 's Golden Age Of Radio Theatre . One of the longest running radio programs celebrating this era is ''The Golden Days of Radio'', which was hosted on the Armed Forces Radio Service (later Armed Forces Radio and Television Service) for more than 20 years and overall for more than 50 years by Frank Bresee, who also played "Little Beaver" on the '' Red Ryder '' program as a child actor. On the East Coast , Bresee's former billboard announcer Steve Ray hosts the current edition of ''The Golden Days of Radio'' on Vegas Radio/WTRI-AM in the Washington, D.C. area. Today, radio performers of the past appear at conventions which feature recreations of classic shows, as well as music, memorabilia and historical panels. The largest of these events is the Friends of Old Time Radio Convention, held annually in . The Museum Of Television & Radio 's collection of more than 120,000 programs and commercials spans 88 years of radio-TV history, beginning with a 1918 speech by labor leader Samuel Gompers . The radio shows in this collection can be heard at the MT&R in New York, and that same collection is duplicated at the MT&R in Los Angeles. Old-time radio is still very popular among blind people today. SEE ALSO
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