RADIO DRAMA BY SANDRA AGGREY

KEY FACTS Radio drama is a form of audio storytelling broadcast on radio. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the story. Radio drama achieved widespread popularity within a decade of its initial development in the 1920s. By the 1940s, it was a leading international popular entertainment. With the advent of television in the 1950s, however, radio drama lost some of its popularity, and in some countries, has never regained large audiences (E.g. America) Recordings of OTR (old-time radio) survive today in the audio archives of collectors and museums.

HISTORY OF THE POPULARITY OF RADIO DRAMA Perhaps America's most famous radio drama broadcast is Orson Welles's The War of the Worlds, a 1938 version of the H. G. Wells novel, which convinced large numbers of listeners that an actual invasion from Mars was taking place. By the late 1930s, radio drama was widely popular in the United States (and also in other parts of the world). There were dozens of programs in many different genres, from mysteries and thrillers, to soap operas and comedies. There were occasional efforts at more "literary" works, such as Under Milk Wood (1954) and "Play for Voices" by Dylan Thomas. Many playwrights, screenwriters and novelists got their start in radio drama, including Caryl Churchill, Rod Serling, Irwin Shaw and Tom Stoppard.

DOWNFALL IN AMERICA English language radio drama seems to have started in the United States. "A Rural Line on Education", a brief sketch specifically written for radio, aired on Pittsbugh's KDKA (AM)] in 1921, according to historian Bill Jaker. After the advent of television, radio drama never recovered its popularity in the United States. Most remaining CBS and NBC radio dramas were cancelled in The last network radio dramas to originate during American radio's "golden age", Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, ended on September 30, As of 2006, radio drama has had a minimal presence on terrestrial radio in the United States. Much of American radio drama is restricted to rebroadcasts or podcasts of programs from previous decades.

BRITISH RADIO DRAMA: HISTORY The first radio drama broadcast was on 16 February 1923, from the British Broadcasting Company's Marconi House on the Strand in central London. The programme had scenes from Shakespeare's works. Another notable early radio drama, written for the medium in the UK, was Danger by Richard Hughes, broadcast by the BBC on January 15, 1924, about a group of people trapped in a Welsh coal mine.

BRITISH RADIO DRAMA: TODAY In the United Kingdom, for example, the BBC produces and broadcasts hundreds of new radio plays each year on Radio 3, Radio 4, and BBC Radio 7. Drama is aired daily on Radio 4 in the form of afternoon plays, a Friday evening play, short dramas included in the daily Woman's Hour program, Saturday plays and Sunday classic serials. On Radio 3 there is Sunday evening drama and, in the slot reserved for experimental drama, The Wire. The drama output on Radio 7, which consists predominantly of archived programs, is chiefly composed of comedy, thrillers and science fiction.

AROUND THE WORLD Radio drama remains popular in much of the world. Stations producing radio drama often commission a large number of scripts. The relatively low cost of producing a radio play enables them to take chances with works by unknown writers. Radio drama in Japan has a history as long as that of radio broadcasting in that country, which began in Some consider the first Japanese radio drama to have been "Kirihitoha (The Falling Paulownia Leaf)" which was a radio broadcast of a stage play. Others consider the Japanese translation of Richard Hughes's "Danger" or Tankō no Naka (Down the coal pit) to be the first true radio drama to be broadcast in Japan. In Japan today, it is common for popular television dramas, "Light novels", manga series, anime series or video games to have main plot lines, plot continuations, sequels or small side stories released in the form of audio dramas. Vividh Bharti a service of All India Radio has a long running Hindi radio-drama program Hawa Mahal.

MORE ABOUT RADIO DRAMA The audio drama format exists side-by-side with books presented on radio, read by actors or by the author. In Britain and other countries there is also a quite a bit of radio comedy (both stand-up and sitcom). Together, these programs provide entertainment where television is either not wanted or would be distracting (such as while driving or operating machinery). The lack of visuals also enable fantastical settings and effects to be used in radio plays where the cost would be prohibitive for movies or television. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first produced as radio drama, and was not adapted for television until much later, when its popularity would ensure an appropriate return for the high cost of the futuristic setting. On occasion television, series can be revived as radio series. For example, a long- running but no longer popular television series can be continued as a radio series because the reduced production costs make it cost-effective with a much smaller audience. When an organization owns both television and radio channels, such as the BBC, the fact that no royalties have to be paid makes this even more attractive. Radio revivals can also use actors reprising their television roles even after decades as they still sound roughly the same. Series that have had this treatment include Doctor Who, Dad's Army, Thunderbirds and The Tomorrow People.

FUTURE OF RADIO DRAMA With 21st-century technology, modern radio drama, also known as audio theatre, has experienced a revival, with a growing number of independent producers who are able to build an audience through internet distribution. While there are few academic programs in the United States that offer training in radio drama production, organizations such as the National Audio Theatre Festival teach the craft to new producers. The digital age has also resulted in recording styles that differ from the studio recordings of radio drama's Golden Age. Not From Space (2003) on XM Satellite Radio was the first national radio play recorded exclusively through the Internet in which the voice actors were all in separate locations. XM continues to air modern radio dramas on its Book Radio channel (formerly Sonic Theatre). Currently, podcasts are the most promising distribution format for independent radio drama producers. Podcasts provides a good alternative to mainstream television and radio because they have no restrictions regarding program length or content. On Oct. 9, 2010, the horror-genre radio drama "The House of Lucy Chatham" will be released to the web via YouTube by Wemawa Productions.