A lot of folks still don't know what web radio is. Let's note first of
all that it is not the same thing as podcasting, although the two are often confused. Without going into the technicalities,
web radio uses streaming audio to create a "live," ongoing broadcast such as you would hear from a regular radio station.
Podcasting involves the creation of individual recordings which people can download for listening at a later time, either
on their computer or on an MP3 player such as an iPod.
For a long time web radio was plagued by problems. Sound quality was usually
poor. Because of the bandwidth required, many web radio stations were severely limited in the number of people they permitted
to listen at any one time--in some cases, this could be as few as a half dozen! The number and variety of stations were quite
limited, as well.
Happily, most of those early limitations have been resolved. The web radio
scene today presents a wonderful smorgasbord of musical variety, an incredible array of genres to suit all tastes, and a quality
that often matches high-end stereo for the ability to produce a satisfying listening experience.
Although web radio's primary audiences remain office workers and college
students, more and more people are discovering this neat entertainment source. One study in the UK reported an 84% increase
in internet radio listening hours for the most recent year. Another study said web radio attracts 52 million listeners during
a typical month.
Web radio is free to listen to, for the most part, and the software one
needs to take advantage of it is free as well. Player software such as WinAmp or iTunes not only sends the music to your computer
speakers, it also generally includes a directory of radio channels--just click on your choice and play. The directory will
almost always be arranged by genres, some of the more popular being blues, oldies, rock, psychedelia, easy listening, country,
trance or electronic, country, reggae, world music and hip hop. The diversity truly is astounding: the other day I ran across
a web radio station devoted exclusively to Hawaiian and polka music!
Thank you for stopping by the home of sixties music on the net. With shows broadcast 24/7, you can bet that wherever you are,
you can listen to this great music anywhere in the world at a time to suit you!
The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known simply as the BBC, is the world's largest broadcasting corporation.
It has 28,000 employees in the United Kingdom alone and an annual budget of more than £4 billion.
Founded on 18 October 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, it was subsequently granted a Royal Charter and made
a state-owned corporation in 1927. The corporation produces programmes and information services, broadcasting globally on
television, radio, and the Internet. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain" (as laid
down by Parliament in the BBC Charter); its motto is "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation".
The BBC is a quasi-autonomous public corporation as a public service broadcaster. The Corporation is run by the BBC Trust;
and is, per its charter, "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners".
Many musical styles flourished and combined in the 1940s and 1950s, most likely because of the influence of radio had in creating
a mass market for music. World War II caused great social upheaval, and the music of this period shows the effects of that
upheaval.
In the 1940s, the major strands of American music combined to form what would eventually be coined as rock and roll. Based
most strongly off an electric guitar-based version of the Chicago blues, rock also incorporated jazz, country, folk, swing,
and other types of music; in particular, bebop jazz and boogie woogie blues were in vogue and greatly influenced the music
style. The style had developed by 1949, and quickly became popular among blacks nationwide (see 1949 in music). Mainstream
success was slow to develop, though (in spite of early success with Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock"),
and didn't begin in earnest until Elvis Presley ("Hound Dog") began singing rock, R&B and rockabilly songs in
a devoted black style. He quickly became the most famous and best-selling artist in American history, and a watershed point
in the development of music.
A message from Tom Heathwood:
Thanks to every one of our listeners...Heritage Radio Classics has been providing collectors and nostalgia buffs with
the best in vintage radio shows from the 1930's, 40's and 50's on high quality audio cassettes since 1971!
Old time radio shows are a wonderful form of entertainment. If you've never experienced the thrills of a classic detective
show such as Sam Spade or a police procedural series such as Dragnet you're in for a pleasant surprise and if you have then
you'll know just what I'm talking about.
Amongst the hundreds of series available (over 500 at the last count) on the OTR-FTP Server you'll find an excellent mix
of suspense, drama and comedy along with quiz shows, classic sports events and even shows for kids. Start downloading today!
Most of the shows are 30 minutes long and are ideal for listening to in your car, whilst sat working at your computer or even
when out walking or jogging if you have a portable MP3 player.
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.
The 1950s also saw the popular dominance of the Nashville sound in country music, and the beginning of popular folk music
with groups like The Weavers. Country's Nashville sound was slick and soulful, and a movement of rough honky tonk developed
in a reaction against the mainstream orientation of Nashville. This movement was centered in Bakersfield, California with
musicians like Buck Owens ("Act Naturally"), Merle Haggard ("Sing a Sad Song") and Wynn Stewart ("It's
Such a Pretty World Today") helping to define the sound among the community, made up primarily of Oklahoman immigrants
to California, who had fled unemployment and drought. A similarly hard-edged sound also arose in Lubbock, Texas (Lubbock sound).
By the late 1950s, a revival of Appalachian folk music was taking place across the country, and bands like The Weavers
were paving the way for future mainstream stars like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Bluegrass was similarly revitalized and updated
by artists including Tony Rice, Clarence White, Richard Green, Bill Keith and David Grisman. The Dillards, however, were the
ones to break bluegrass into mainstream markets in the early 1960s.
In addition, doo wop achieved widespread popularity in the 1950s. Doo wop was a harmonically complex style of choral singing
that developed in the streets of major cities like Chicago, New York, and, most importantly, Baltimore. Doo Wop singers would
work a cappella without backing instruments, and practice in hallways of their schools, apartment buildings, or alleys to
achieve echo effects on their voices, and lyrics were generally innocent youthful observations on the upsides of teen love
and romance. Groups like The Crows ("Gee"), The Orioles ("It's Too Soon to Know") and Brooklyn's Frankie
Lymon & the Teenagers ("Why Do Fools Fall in Love") had a string of hit songs that brought the genre to chart
domination by 1958 (see 1958 in music).
Romagnosi
The pre-history and early history of radio is the history of technology that produced instruments that use radio waves. Later
radio history increasingly involves matters of programming and content.
Various scientists proposed that electricity and magnetism, both capable of causing attraction and repulsion of objects,
were linked. In 1802 Gian Domenico Romagnosi suggested the relationship between electric current and magnetism, but his reports
went unnoticed. In 1820 Hans Christian Ørsted performed a widely known experiment on man-made electric current and magnetism.
He demonstrated that a wire carrying a current could deflect a magnetized compass needle. Ørsted's experiments discovered
the relationship between electricity and magnetism in a very simple experiment. Ørsted's work influenced André-Marie Ampère
to produce a theory of electromagnetism. In the history of radio and development of "wireless telegraphy", several
people are claimed to have "invented the radio". The most commonly accepted claims are:
Jagadish Chandra Bose
Alexander Stepanovich Popov
Nikola Tesla, who developed means to reliably produce radio frequency currents, publicly demonstrated the principles of
radio, and transmitted long distance signals. In 1943 the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number U.S. Patent 645,576
in effect recognizing him as the inventor of radio.
Guglielmo Marconi, who equipped ships with life-saving wireless communications, conducted a reported transatlantic radio
communications experiments in 1901 and established the first commercial transatlantic radio service in 1907.
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 Christmas Eve, 1906, Reginald Fessenden sent the first radio program broadcast, which was made up of some violin playing
and passages from the bible. At least one radio researcher has questioned whether this broadcast took place, because it was
not mentioned in print until many years later.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.
Amos n Andy
Broadcasting was not yet supported by advertising or listener sponsorship. The stations owned by manufacturers and department
stores were established to sell radios and those owned by newspapers to sell newspapers and express the opinions of the owners.
In the 1920s, Radio was first used to transmit pictures visible as television. During the early 1930s, single sideband (SSB)
and frequency modulation (FM) were invented by amateur radio operators. By 1940, they were established commercial modes.
Westinghouse was brought into the patent allies group, General Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph, and Radio Corporation
of America, and became a part owner of RCA. All radios made by GE and Westinghouse were sold under the RCA label 60% GE and
40% Westinghouse. ATT's Western Electric would build radio transmitters. The patent allies attempted to set up a monopoly,
but they failed due to successful competition. Much to the dismay of the patent allies, several of the contracts for inventor's
patents held clauses protecting "amateurs" and allowing them to use the patents. Whether the competing manufacturers
were really amateurs was ignored by these competitors.
Cajun and Creole music
The 1940s saw a return to the roots of Cajun music, led by Iry LeJeune, Nathan Abshire and other artists, alongside musicians
who incorporated rock and roll, including Laurence Walker and Aldus Roger. In the late 1940s, Clifton Chenier, a Creole, began
playing an updated form of la la called zydeco. Zydeco was briefly popular among some mainstream listeners during the 1950s.
Artists like Boozoo Chavis, Queen Ida, Rockin' Dopsie and Rockin' Sidney have continued to bring zydeco to national audiences
in the following decades. Zydeco shows major influences from rock, and artists like Beau Jocque have combined other influences,
including hip hop.
1941_CGE_KL-500_radio
We are happy to be able to offer hundreds of old time radio shows for free download. Once you download these free OTR shows
you can then listen to them on your computer or copy them to a cd so you can listen anywhere! We started this website out
of a love for classic radio shows from the 30's, 40's and 50's. By offering free OTR downloads we can keep the innocent spirit
of the golden age of radio alive in the new millennium! Some of our favorite old time radio shows include The Shadow, Amos
& Andy, Fibber McGee & Molly, Sherlock Holmes and so many more! All the old radio shows on this site are in MP3 format
so you should have no trouble downloading and listening to them. We love to hear from other OTR fans so please send us email
and let us know you think of the site, what your favorite old time radio show is, or just to say hi! Thanks for stopping by
and Happy Listening!
Here you may once again listen to those great old radio classics by way of contemporary broadcasters. These broadcasts each
contain several complete old-time radio programs provided by broadcasters dedicated to preserving and encouraging Old Time
Radio.
On these pages are pictures of old BBC radio equipment and memories from the people who built, maintained and used it.
We don't aim at building a comprehensive history but to provide some 'snap-shots' of times and places. Many thanks to
all contributors of photos and information.
Radio London
On August 14, 1967 - In the United Kingdom a Marine Offences Act came into force prompting many offshore radio stations to
close, most prominently Radio London off Frinton in Essex at 3pm local time on this day. The Act boosted a campaign for onshore
commercial radio to be legalised, which would enable listeners to choose a non-BBC English-language station and cause the
establishment style of BBC radio to be relaxed and refreshed. See BBC Radio 1.
Modern day pirate radio stations often cater for local communities and underground music fans that are not necessarily
catered for by larger corporate radio stations.
Some of the pirate stations are now legal and successful outfits, including Radio Jackie and Kiss FM in London, and the
Sunshine Radio in Ludlow, Shropshire, which was run from studios at the end of a farm drive in its unlicensed days.
A Fisher 500 AM/FM hi-fi receiver from 1959.
Bluegrass
In 1938, Bill Monroe formed the Blue Grass Boys (named after his native state of Kentucky, the blue grass state) and combined
diverse influences into Appalachian folk music. These include Scottish, Irish and Eastern European folk, as well as blues,
jazz and gospel. Monroe became the father of bluegrass music, and his band was a training ground for most of bluegrass' future
stars, especially Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Scruggs and Flatt popularized bluegrass as part of the Foggy Mountain Boys,
which they formed in 1948. Though bluegrass never quite achieved mainstream status, it did become well-known through its use
in several soundtracks, including the T.V. theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies and the movies Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance.
In the 1950s, bluegrass artists included Stanley Brothers, Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys.
Following World War 2, gospel began its golden age. Artists like the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, The Swan Silvertones,
Clara Ward Singers and Sensational Nightingales became stars across the country; other early artists like Sam Cooke, Dionne
Warwick, Dinah Washington, Johnnie Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett began their career in gospel quartets during this
period, only to achieve even greater fame in the '60s as the pioneers of soul music, itself a secularized, R&B-influenced
form of gospel. Mahalia Jackson and The Staple Singers were undoubtedly the most successful of the golden age gospel artists.
Cuban mambo, chachachá and charanga bands enjoyed brief periods of popularity, and helped establish a viable Latin-American
music industry, which led the way to the invention of salsa music among Cubans and Puerto Ricans in New York City in the 1970s.
The '50s also saw success for Mexican ranchera divas, while a Mexican-American mariachi scene was developing on the West Coast,
and Puerto Rican plena, Brazilian bossa nova and other Latin genres became popular.
Mexican-Texans had been playing conjunto music for decades by the end of World War 2, female duos created the first popular
style of Mexican-American music, música norteña. Mexican romantic ballads called bolero were also popular, especially singers
like the Queen of the Bolero, Chelo Silva. In the mid-1950s, when Mexican ranchera was used in Hollywood film soundtracks
and the upper-class enjoyed stately orquestas Tejanas and conjunto evolved into a distinctively Mexican-American genre called
Tejano. Artists of this era include Esteban Jordan, Tony de la Rosa and El Conjunto Bernal.
The War of the Worlds was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed
as a Halloween special on October 30, 1938 and aired over the CBS Radio network. Directed by Orson Welles, the episode was
an adaptation of H. G. Wells' classic novel The War of the Worlds.
The first half of the 60-minute broadcast was presented as a series of news bulletins, which suggested to many listeners
that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Some fled their homes; others merely were terrified. The news-bulletin format
was decried as cruelly deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the perpetrators of the
broadcast, but the episode launched Welles to fame.
Radio_Diora_Pionier
The most common type of receiver before vacuum tubes was the crystal set, although some early radios used some type of amplification
through electric current or battery. Inventions of the triode amplifier, motor-generator, and detector enabled audio radio.
The use of amplitude modulation (AM), with which more than one station can simultaneously send signals (as opposed to spark-gap
radio, where one transmitter covers the entire bandwidth of spectra) was pioneered by Fessenden and Lee de Forest.
To this day there is a small but avid base of fans of this technology who study and practice the art and science of designing
and making crystal sets as a hobby; the Boy Scouts of America have often undertaken such craft projects to introduce boys
to electronics and radio, and quite a number of them having grown up remain staunch fans of a radio that 'runs on nothing,
forever'. As the only energy available is that gathered by the antenna system, there are inherent limitations on how much
sound even an ideal set could produce, but with only moderately decent antenna systems remarkable performance is possible
with a superior set.
The Archers is a British radio soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main speech (as opposed to music) channel, Radio 4. It is
the world's longest running radio soap with more than 15,000 episodes broadcast, and was originally billed as an "everyday
story of country folk".Despite its rural flavour, it is recorded in the heart of Birmingham, the UK's second largest
city. The Archers is the most listened to Radio 4 non-news programme, and holds the BBC Radio programme record for the number
of times listened to over the internet, with over one million listeners
The Archers
The Shipping Forecast is a four-times-daily BBC radio broadcast of weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the coasts
of Britain and Ireland.
It is produced by the UK Meteorological Office (part of MOD) and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on behalf of the Maritime and
Coastguard Agency (part of Department for Transport).
The forecasts sent over the Navtex system use a similar format, and the same sea areas.
