Links
to other great Old Time Radio and audio drama websites, grouped by category... (though why anyone would want to visit other websites is beyond me). I've also included a section about well-known 'scraper' sites that you should stay away from. Currently this archive contains 77 links.If you know of a site that should be included please contact me.
- Bulk Downloads - free
- Single Downloads - free
- First Generation - paid
- Blogs, Podcasts, Forums
- Dedicated Sites - single-issue sites
- Research - databases, history
- Research - books, ebooks, audiobooks
- Other Sites of Interest
- Contemporary Audio Drama
- Reviews and Plot Summaries
- Scraper Sites
- Reciprocal Links
- Sources
Bulk Downloads - free
- Internet Archive, The
- Huge repository of OTR which can be downloaded in zipped files or listened to directly online. Their search engine can be a little tricky; sometimes it is easier to use Google and type in 'Internet Archive' plus the name of the series you are looking for. Streaming and Downloads.
Single Downloads - free
- BBC Radio 4 Extra
- BBC radio—still going strong after 85 years! Horror, Supernatural, Sci-Fi and Fantasy. But also Action/Adventure, Biographical, Crime, Historical, Political, Psychological, Romance, Soaps, Spiritual, Thrillers, and Westerns. Episodes are available for one week only; better keep checking so you don't miss anything! Streaming.
- Monster Club, The
- Ghosts, Monsters, Mad Scientists, and More!. Offers a hand-picked selection of 500 of the best Horror episodes from a wide range of series. Also, a link to the Monster Club's Live365 Horror station. Originally started as a BBS (bulletin board service, for you youngins) in 1995! Streaming and Downloads.
- Old Time Radio Fans
- Download site with content from many genres. Caution: a spot check reveals misnamed episodes, episodes listed under the wrong series, incorrect titles, and only a few episodes from each series.... but what do you expect for nothing? Downloads.
- OTR Fan
- Download site with content from many genres. It is not clear how large the selection is. There doesn't seem to be any way to list the available episodes or download what you like, just a random selection... but the downloads are free. Streaming and Downloads.
- Relic Radio
- Internet radio station. Streaming OTR and a user forum. Each episode includes a modern introduction by Relic Radio staff. This is useful in a streaming format, but I find it extremely annoying when I am downloading and collecting OTR. Streaming.
- Vintage Entertainment Radio Network
- Internet radio station. Requires Windows Media Player, so I haven't listened. Streaming.
- Zoot Radio
- Free Old Time Radio downloads. Free registration is required. Some 25,000 episodes... many mislabelled. The webmaster firmly believes that OTR is in the public domain and should be free to everyone. Downloads.
First Generation Encodes (fee-based)
- Alien Voices
- Official download site for Alien Voices. This series is still under copyright protection. Five episodes, total. Cost: $9.99 each (2 hours). Downloads.
- Digital Deli Online
- Offers mp3 encodes from a variety of sources, some of which are from their own transcription discs—they have thousands of transcription discs and regularly add new encodes to their FTP site. Some episodes are available free as streaming audio, but there is a fee to use their FTP site. Cost: $5/gigabyte (100-1,000 hours, depending on the encoding). Streaming and Downloads.
- Jerry Haendiges Productions
- Offers first generation encodes directly from their restored CD masters, sampled at 44.1 kHz and encoded at 256 Kbps bitrate. Cost: $10/CD (5-7 hours). mp3 CDs.
- Jim French Productions
- Official download site for Crisis. This series is still under copyright protection. Thirty-seven episodes, total. Cost: $1.99 each (1/2 hour). Note: Jim French is still producing audio drama! Perhaps a dozen different series are currently available on his site. Downloads.
- Radio Archives
- Formerly First Generation Radio Archives. Working from good quality transcription discs, Radio Archives has restored to stunning fidelity some of the classics of radio drama. They also offer transcription discs, pulp magazines, audiobooks, and eBooks. Cost: $30/10 CDs (10 hours). Audio CDs.
- Yuri Rasovsky - Audio Dramatist
- Official download site for various audio productions of Yuri Rasovsky. These series are still under copyright protection. Twenty-one stories, ranging from 1-8 hours each. Cost: $6/CD (1 hour). Audio CDs.
- ZBS Foundation
- Official download site for various ZBS audio productions. After 40 years they are still going strong: Jack Flanders, Ruby: The Galactic Gumshoe, 3D-binaural soundscapes, the music of Tim Clark and the zany writing of Meatball Fulton. Hundreds of hours of audio available on CD or mp3. Audio CDs.
Blogs, Podcasts and Forums
- Audio Drama Talk
- Web Forum. A place to discuss all things audio. Geared toward current audio drama—writing, production, marketing, listening—but does have a thread for OTR. Over twenty current audio drama groups have threads to announce upcoming projects and casting calls.
- Rand's Esoteric OTR
- Weblog and Podcast. Featuring vintage broadcasts transferred directly from original transcriptions. An eclectic selection, many of which are rare. Esoteric: 'intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest'. Streaming and Downloads.
- SFF Audio
- Weblog and Podcast. Very well designed and in-depth weblog on Science Fiction audio-drama (in all its forms) and books on tape. Occasionally ventures into OTR. Includes pages devoted to individual authors. Highly recommended. Streaming and Downloads.
- Whirlitzer of Wizdoms, The
- Web Forum. A place to discuss Life, the Universe, and Everything. Geared toward the productions of ZBS Foundation (Ruby, Jack Flanders, et al), but also hosts threads relating to humour, artwork, philosophy... and things that aren't safe to look at while you're at work.
- Zombie Astronaut
- Weblog. A site devoted to Sci-Fi and Horror audio drama. Offers a wide selection of episodes; definitely worth a visit. Blog was active 2006-2009, but still has many mp3 files available for download (several hundred, at least). Hopefully they'll be back some day. Downloads.
Sites Dedicated to Specific Series or Authors
- CBS Radio Mystery Theater
- Reviews and synopses. A searchable database that provides cross-referenced information on episode titles, plot summaries, and cast. You may also browse by title or browse by performer. Very fast search engine.
- Escape and Suspense!
- Reviews and synopses. Comprehensive plotlines, original research, detailed backgrounds of actors, directors, and producers. Episodes are also grouped by category to make it easy to find similar stories (cautionary tales, retro horror, science fiction, urban legends, film noir, etc.). Highly Recommended. Downloads.
- Fear on Four
- History. Full cast and production credits, plot summaries, episode histories, episode numbers, and air dates. Also, some history of Appointment with Fear and The Man in Black.
- H.P. Lovecraft Archive, The
- Fan site. Dedicated to the life, writings, and creations of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Includes: family, correspondents, interests, photos, list of published works, list of available adaptations, biographies, travel, philosophy, popular culture, literary criticism and much more.
- J.G. Ballard Archive, The
- Fan site. Dedicated to the work and life of J.G. Ballard. Includes: bibliographies, Interviews, oddities, stories, a forum, and 7 episodes of radio drama from The Vanishing Point. Downloads.
- Mercury Theatre
- Downloads. A very brief history of The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Downloads available in Real Audio format (with some mp3 files). An interview with both Orson Welles and H.G. Wells! A video excerpt from the first stage production of The Mercury Theatre—Macbeth, set in Haiti with an African-American cast. Episodes from Les Misérables, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and The Campbell Playhouse. Torrent and Downloads.
- Nightfall Project, The
- Fan Site. A blog with a brief history of the Canadian series Nightfall. Includes: episode guide, cast and crew credits, obituaries, and the first 38 episodes (streaming only). These are lower-quality encodes, as the entire series is still under copyright protection. If you like what you hear, contact the CBC and encourage them to release the entire series! Streaming.
- Quiet, Please
- Fan site. History of the series, fan forum. Sections of the site include: mp3 downloads, radio scripts, brief plot summaries, snippets, press clippings, lives and careers of Wyllis Cooper and Ernest Chappell. Downloads.
- Quietly Yours
- History. A page about Wyllis Cooper's fantasy anthology series, Quiet, Please! A brief history of the series, an episode log, scripts and a Wyllis Cooper chronology. Also, Cooper scripts from other series.
- Yuri Rasovsky Archive, The
- Fan site. Dedicated to the work and life of Yuri Rasovsky, who worked professionally in theatre and broadcasting as an actor, writer, director and producer for 42 years (1970-2012). Creator of over 100 audio books, producer of the Hollywood Theater of the Ear, and founder of the National Radio Theater. Awards, testimonials, essays, audiography, and biography.
Research - Databases, History
- Australian Old Time Radio
- Database. A site devoted to Australian Old Time Radio. Includes: Australian radio history, feature articles, photos, downloads, and a database of series, episodes, and actors.
- BBC Radio Listings
- Database. The most comprehensive episode guide I have found to BBC archive radio. The database is updated weekly and revised daily. It contains (as of today) data for over 37,000 programmes and 256,000 episodes, from March 1949 up till the present day, but most of the data is from 1997 onwards. Programme names, episode titles and air dates, cast and crew. Highly recommended.
- CBS Radio Mystery Theater
- Database. A searchable database that provides cross-referenced information on episode titles, plot summaries, and cast. You may also browse by title or browse by performer. Very fast search engine.
- Digital Deli Too
- HTML-based web pages. Hundreds of them. Ongoing comprehensive research. Detailed series histories, biographies, network affiliations, and radio logs. The radio logs that the Digital Deli Too present are gleaned from many sources and may be the most accurate radio logs found on the web. Or not. In any event, all their provenances are detailed on their web pages so others can build upon their research. Streaming.
- Generic Radio Workshop, The—Vintage Radio Script Library
- Scripts. Almost 800 scripts from over 170 different vintage radio series. By the time your read this, these numbers will almost certainly be out of date as new scripts are added every week—some from old archives, some from the hard work of volunteers who transcribe every word from broadcast recordings.
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database, The
- Database. A huge database covering all published speculative fiction. Their goal is to list all known publication dates and sources, titles, variant titles, authors, author aliases, birth dates, death dates, cities of birth, awards, and many other tidbits. Exceptional quality. Highly recommended.
- OTR MP3 Errors—Nightkey
- HTML-based web pages. Plagiarism is rampant in the OTR community. And illiterate plagiarism at that! The same incorrect dates and titles keep getting published. Nightkey has attempted to mitigate this by publishing the errors he has found within his own extensive collection. Essential, if you wish to purge your own collection of misinformation! Highly recommended.
- The Ottr Project
- Database. An online database of over 1,900 OTR series compiled by a dedicated group of volunteer researchers. Unfortunately there are quite a few errors. Use with a grain of salt.
- RadioGOLDINdex
- Database. An on-line database with a truly stunning amount of information. Almost 100,000 shows with almost 500,000 artist credits! Created and maintained by J. David Goldin. Very high quality.
- Radio Horror Hosts
- HTML-based web pages. An on-line guide to radio's Horror Hosts from the 1920s to the present. Includes bios of the hosts, summaries of the series they hosted, typical intro and exit patter, and a few downloads from each series (where available). Highly recommended. Downloads.
- Springbok Radio
- HTML-based web pages. The official website of Springbok Radio in South Africa. Looks like the site is undergoing maintenance... or was never finished. I've seen links to Springbok Radio Logs for Beyond Midnight and SF 68, but these links are now dead. Hopefully they will come back, along with many other radio logs. I think downloads were available at one time, but now just streaming. A schedule is posted. Streaming.
- Voice Chasers
- Database. A website celebrating voice actors and the craft of voice over. Mostly modern but does have OTR entries in the database. Website includes voice actor and voice over industry news and a forum.
Research - Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks
- LibriVox
- Free public domain audio books. Not OTR, but still a great resource to know about. Objective: 'To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.' Streaming and Downloads.
- Mystery and Imagination
- A blog designed to provide fans of classic gothic, horror and supernatural fiction with free formatted ebooks and full text PDFs of well-known and less well-known texts, drawn from public domain sources. A great place to find that obscure gothic story you've been looking for. Downloads.
- Project Gutenberg
- Over 50,000 free (public domain) ebooks: choose among free epub books, free kindle books, download them or read them online. Also, CDs, DVDs, and digitized sheet music. Another great source for reading gothic stories of the supernatural. Downloads.
Other Sites of Interest
- Audio Drama Directory, The
- Directory. Lists hundreds of modern audio drama productions. Most are fairly recent, not OTR.
- BARD—Bay Area Radio Drama
- History. Focuses on Bay Area Radio Drama which produced many independent series, including The Black Mass, Tales from the Shadows, plays of Eugene O'Neill, and various consignments. Downloads.
- Cylinder Archive, The
- History. Dedicated to exploring the world of early recorded sound on phonograph cylinders. "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless."—Thomas Alva Edison. Downloads.
- Dinosaur Gardens
- Weblog. A eclectic blog dealing with 'Americana'. Not being updated any more, but still has blog posts from 2006-2009. Describes itself as 'excavating the tar pits of popular culture'. This site appears to be down, which is a shame because it was very unique. Last checked Jan 2016. Downloads.
- Exploring Dystopia
- Analysis. A site devoted to examining Dystopian themes in science fiction. Not OTR, but very insightful and well designed. Definition, characteristics, a detailed list of dystopian fiction, and a timeline. Hmm, this site appears to be down, too. Or maybe it's just moving to a different server? Hope it comes back. Last checked Jan 2016.
- Golden Age of Radio, The
- Interviews. MP3 downloads of Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran interviewing many of great names of Old Time Radio: Rudy Vallee, William Spier, Bret Morrison, Vincent Price, Raymond Edward Johnson, Don Ameche, Howard Duff, Himan Brown, E.G. Marshall, Edgar Bergen, Mel Blanc, and William Robson, to name a few. Downloads.
- Grand Guignol On-line, The
- History. As used today, the term 'Grand Guignol' (pronounced Grahn Geen-yol') refers to any dramatic entertainment that deals with macabre subject matter and features 'over-the-top' graphic violence. It is derived from Le Theatre du Grand Guignol, the name of the Parisian theatre that horrified audiences for over sixty years.
- Hard SF
- Analysis. A site devoted to hard Science Fiction in all its glory. Reviews, scientific articles, podcasts, reading lists, audio, and lots of aliens. There is a link page called Free Audio SF which includes story and book readings, podcasts, source sites, radio and audio drama.
- Radio Station KPFA
- History. An historical perspective of radio station KPFA as presented by John Whiting. Includes: Pacifica Sampler 1961, Public Affairs, Music, Drama and Literature, Conversations, and History. Also, high-quality encodes of The Black Mass and Compendium Cliché Productions. Steaming and Downloads.
- Radio Days
- Jim Widner's OTR site. (He's one of the authorities on Science Fiction Radio.) Author of Science Fiction on Radio: A Revised Look 1950- 1975. A must for fans of the medium! Site also includes: logs and overview pages for Sci-Fi, Comedy, Private Eyes, Mystery, and Radio News (among others). Downloads.
- Thrilling Detective
- Analysis. A site devoted to fictional detectives—novels, radio, television and comics. Articles, authors, reviews, Hall of Fame. Includes pages for Adventures by Morse, Dangerous Assignment, I Love a Mystery, Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe, and Suspense.
- Vintage Radio Place, The
- Jerry Haendiges' website has been the cornerstone of OTR on the net for many years. Doesn't look like it's being updated any more, though. Annoying graphics. Steaming and mp3 CDs.
Contemporary Audio Drama
- 19 Nocturne Boulevard
- Half-hour anthology series, ranging from Horror to Sci-Fi, from Fantasy to Dark Social Commentary and from Humour to Nothing Funny about It. New shows produced semi-monthly. Winner of 3 Mark Time awards. Highly Recommended! Podcasts and Downloads.
- Atlanta Radio Theatre Company
- Fully dramatized, fully sound-scaped audio drama, far beyond the readings and audio books you can find in every bookstore. Recent productions may be purchased. Cost: $7.49/CD. Older productions may be listened to as podcasts or downloaded as mp3. Podcasts and Downloads.
- Audio Drama Directory
- Directory. A comprehensive directory listing of sites/groups/organizations currently producing audio drama. Highly recommended if you're looking for something new!
- Blue Hours Productions
- Plucky purveyors of retro-themed programming for radio, television, and the Internet since 2010. Consists primarily of John C. Alsedek and Dana Perry-Hayes (who have six decades of combined professional experience in writing, music, film/video, acting and production), but also includes a diverse and talented group of actors and musicians, with whose help they produce a Suspense revival (among other projects). Streaming.
- BrokenSea Audio Productions
- Community audio theater. A keen group of audio drama fanatics who create podcast and free download stories in audio format. Included in their line-up is original fantasy, Sci-Fi, horror, drama, comedy and fan-works and audio versions of great films (like Planet of the Apes and Logan's Run). Casting calls, auditions. Podcasts.
- Chatterbox Audio Theater
- Fully sound-scaped audio, recorded live, with manual sound effects and as little post-production editing as possible. Non-profit web-based community theatre. Podcasts and Downloads.
- Great Northern Audio Theatre
- Contemporary audio theatre. Produces light-hearted and comic original stories. Most of their work may be purchased at the ZBS Foundation website. Cost: varies, around $10/hour. Downloads.
- Gypsy Audio
- Community audio theater. Gypsy Audio is run by a group of friends who not only enjoy audio drama, but enjoy sharing it with others! Casting calls, auditions. Podcasts and Downloads.
- Icebox Radio Theater
- Original, full cast audio with sound effects and music. Runs the gamut from comedy to drama, from a possible future to the frightening shadows. New shows produced semi-monthly from the Icebox of the U.S.—International Falls, Minnesota. Podcasts and Downloads.
- Midnight Mystery Players
- They use 'strange voices, live sound effects but most importantly, the mind of you, the listener, to help re-create some of the most thrilling, touching and hilarious stories from yesteryear, as well as new thought-provoking tales from today'. Weekly broadcasts on KMRE-LP, some of which are available for download later. Downloads.
Reviews and Plot Summaries
- Escape and Suspense!
- Reviews and synopses. Comprehensive plotlines, original research, detailed backgrounds of actors, directors, and producers. Episodes are also grouped by category to make it easy to find similar stories (cautionary tales, retro horror, science fiction, urban legends, film noir, etc.). Highly Recommended. Downloads.
- Old Time Radio Review
- Reviews and synopses. Focuses on CBS Radio Workshop, Dimension X, Suspense, and X Minus One.
- OTR Plot Summaries
- Reviews and synopses. Devoted to Westerns, Vigilante-Hero, and Detective series!
Scraper Sites
A 'scraper' site is a website that indiscriminately copies, or 'scrapes', content from other sites, posts that content on their own website, and then pretends that they are are the owners of that content. The purpose is to fraudulently build a reputation through theft, hoping that no one will notice, or care enough to take action.
If the site is successful—if they are able to scrape enough content from other sites without being found out—then the automated robots at Google will start to consider them the 'trusted' site. The result is that the scraper site will rise in the Google search results and the scraped site will vanish into obscurity.
Scraper sites are often characterized by excessive advertising and excessive use of PayPal pop-ups. Also, they rarely correct errors on their website, even when those errors are pointed out, because that would be too much like work.
The sites below have engaged in large-scale theft from this site. Legal action is pending. I urge you to boycott these sites and to spread the word that they engage in unethical practices.
The sites below have engaged in large-scale theft from this site. Legal action is pending. I urge you to boycott these sites and to spread the word that they engage in unethical practices.
- CBS Radio Mystery Theater
- www.cbsrmt.com -- Scraped 159 plotlines and reviews from my CBS Radio Mystery Theater page and posted them as 'comments' below their own plot summaries. They already had plot summaries; there was no need to copy mine, except to create the illusion of an active web site. I sent an email and have not received a response. It used to be a good site; I don't know what's going on. They might be under new management. As an alternative, use the Internet Archive or a different CBS Radio Mystery Theater site. UPDATE: as of 2016-02-02 this site has removed all of my material. I am very pleased about this, but rather grumpy that I had to hire a lawyer to get satisfaction.
- Old Time Radio Downloads
- www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com -- Scraped more than 1600 plotlines, 250 comments, and almost 600 reviews representing 15 years of work -- roughly 86% of my entire website! The bulk of their website has been scraped from RadioGOLDINdex, but as I noted, a fair amount has been scraped from mine. They also offer illegal downloads of copyrighted material, such as Crisis by Jim French. I sent an email and have not received a response. As an alternative, use the Internet Archive. UPDATE: as of 2016-03-08 this site has removed all of my material. I am very pleased about this, but rather grumpy that I had to hire a lawyer to get satisfaction.
- The Mind Webs Project
- http://mindwebs.gothicspider.com -- Scraped 160 plotlines and 5 reviews from my Mindwebs page and posted them as their own plot summaries. Also, they indiscriminately copied the results of my own research (awards won, story background information) and published these as well. Further, they have maligned the ground-breaking work completed by Darkman in restoring some of the Mindwebs episodes and in bringing new encodes to the public, while at the same time taking those encodes and passing them off as their own. They bill themselves as a 'collaborative' effort, but acknowledge few sources outside their own inner-circle. At best this is dishonest; at worst, it is criminal. There is no contact information on their website which is available to the public, so I cannot politely complain. As an alternative, use Darkman's Mindwebs collection at the Internet Archive.
Reciprocal Links
- Murph's World - Theater of the Mind
- History. Short bios of Fred Allen and Jack Benny. No longer has any downloads.
- Toxic Teeth Music
- Music. A band site with a couple of pages devoted to OTR. The music is not at all what I expected from the name of the site. I was expecting some Heavy Metal... or maybe Industrial. I'm not sure how to describe it. Alternative Folk? The more recent releases have better mixing. If you are the sort who is always looking for new music, drop by and check it out. Steaming.
Sources:
Aside from Plots and Reviews (the bread and butter of this site), my database contains much that I find interesting—author/cast names, alternate names, birth/death dates, fun biographical facts, original publication dates for written stories and any awards they have received. Where possible I have gleaned information directly, by listening to each radio program, but the correct spelling of names and titles is particularly difficult, especially when audio quality is poor or the names are obscure. Many errors likely remain.
Besides, I am not a Primary researcher—I don't search through old newspaper articles or radio magazines. I don't visit the Library of Congress or the Smithsonian. So, I have relied heavily on the exhaustive research of others to whom I am grateful! The following sources have proven invaluable in developing my own database. Seriously. These people are inexhaustible and words fail me. You'll just have to check them out and go for a test drive!
- Digital Deli Too
- Ongoing comprehensive research.
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- A huge database covering all published science fiction.
- RadioGOLDINdex
- An on-line database with a truly stunning amount of information.
- Radio Horror Hosts
- A website devoted to classic Horror radio drama. Background and summary information for each series provided, but with an emphasis on the hosts who introduced each series.
- Voice Chasers
- A website celebrating voice actors and the craft of voice over. Mostly modern but does have OTR entries in the database.