Vintage Radio Shows.com allows you to listen to online or download vintage radio shows from the golden age of radio. Some of the most entertaining material ever created would be out of reach of most of us if it were not for two things. First, recordings of the radio shows were made because they needed to be shipped to different radio stations around the country, much as movies are still shipped from one theater to another, and shipped overseas for our troop's enjoyment. Second, the advent of the internet and a need to shrink the size of encoded audio programs necessitated the need for the MP3 standard. Which, in short, makes audio file sizes manageable.

MP3

MP3 files are data files that you can download from our servers to your computer and then play with free software. This is perfectly legal as long as the files themselves are not pirated versions of commercial products.

The type of free software needed to play MP3 files depends on which type of computer you have and which internet browser you are using. If you are using a modern browser, such as Windows Internet Explorer 6, or Firefox or Safari, you should be in good shape.

Sound Quality

We often take the progress of technology for granted until there is a juxtaposition of current technology alongside antiquated technology. Today, we don't even think about the high quality of audio and video, but when we see a clip of an old silent movie or hear a 78 rpm record we realize the difference. Many of the vintage radio shows are of less than perfect quality because of the less than perfect technology of the times and the mishandling of the physical medium in the intervening years. Further, many of the shows survive only by the dedication of vintage radio enthusiasts who have duplicated these shows over the years. Only a fraction of the shows would have survived if these individuals had not had a passion for the shows. However, dedicated though they were, they were not audio engineers and often tape squeaks, cross talk or channel leakage would degrade the quality of the recordings. Unfortunately, very little can be done to return these gems to original quality.

Though we make every effort to screen our shows and weed out those not up to our high standards, many of the shows may not be of pristine audio quality. Please let us know if you find any shows that should be removed from our listings.

Duplicates

You may find that some of the show titles seem to be duplicated. There are several reasons for this. One is that broadcasters often produced multiple versions of the same show... one for broadcast on the east coast... one for the west... some were changed between original broadcast and rebroadcast and used the same title. Some of the shows are rehearsals or auditions. Some of the shows were rewritten and rebroadcast with different actors under a different serial name. So, even thought the shows have the same name - and in some cases the same cast and script - they are actually different shows. If you find a real duplicate, email us and we will remove the offensive copy.