Radio Plays, Audio Drama, Spoken Word Performances, and Podcasts

Online Resources

The following are a few sites and such that you can go to for shows, to buy shows, information on shows, and so forth. I've put them in alphabetical order, with the ALL-CAPS entries being particularly useful.

Amazon.com search for "BBC Radio Collection". The British are the kings of radio drama programming right now, and there are some good used CDs to be picked up. Note, some are new and imports. Overall, quite a few gems if you dig through the stacks. Of course, Amazon.com isn't a bad place to go looking in general.

Audible.com. Mostly deals with audio books and tends to DRM the things, there are some occasional good finds, here.

Big Finish Productions. Commerical radio plays based on established franchies (Doctor Who, Stargate, etc). Something like fan productions, but stronger in quality. Have a fair selection of materials to choose from, but due to import pricing, could be a bit steep for people in the States to afford. For example, the "Eight Doctor" series, containing 16 episodes (12 episodes with four two-parters) comes out to be $230, plus shipping, or, at a run time of about 14 hours, comes out to around the $16 per hour mark.

BBC RADIO 4. Americans who listen to NPR will know something of what to expect from this station. It is a mix of erudite hosts, literate programming, and factual studies. The website is a little bit harder to navigate than BBC7's (listed next) but the programming is good. The actual number of radio plays and audio dramas seem small, but if you are more into non-fiction flavors, then this is a good stop for you.

BBC [RADIO] 7. One of my favorite sources for radio drama. They play through older shows, though some of the "older shows" aren't all that old. Their selection is constantly changing and massive, and can be a bit daunting, but the shows are top notch. You do not have to tune in at specific times to listen in, but keep in mind that their listenable archives only extend back about a week. If you miss a show, you generally have until 7am (British time) on the same day of next week to catch it through their Listen Again. Due to the constantly shifting shows, it is impossible for me to point out favorites besides to say they have a good assortment of comedies, mysteries, and a ton of speculative fiction and thrillers.

BBC Radio, Home and BBC Radio Programmes. Information sites, mostly, but help to see what is new and upcoming and well, in the case of the latter, as giving some basic information on the various shows.

Colonial Radio Theatre on the air. Produce a fair number of works, most seem to be based on public domain classics, and get generally good reviews.

HOWARD PHILLIP LOVECRAFT HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The HPLHS isn't fully dedicated to audio drama but does have a "side line" of prodcuts called "Dark Adventure Radio Theater". Through DART, they have released two excellent dramas so far ("Dunwich Horror" and "At the Mountains of Madness") and, as of the end of August 2008, have two more on the way. Each of their releases has additional materials, what are called "feelies" in the Interactive Fiction crowd.

INTERNET ARCHIVES: OLD TIME RADIO. OTR has a lot of stuff up on the archive. It's a little bit of a bastard to sort through, but it's all free and comes in a variety of bitrates and qualities. There are some real classics here. Fairly quick to download, so might be a good "go-to" for a rainy afternoon.

Lion's Mouth Entertainment. They seem to focus on Star Wars fandom, but have received quite a few thumbs up for their The Age of the Swords series (you can find more at the AOTS page. Episodes are free.

OTR. Old time radio. Streaming episodes with a good mix of shows.

Original Old Radio. Has a HUGE selection of mp3 CDs (note: possibly just ganked from the Internet Archive, though it seems to have stuff not available there). Each one holds about 30 tracks and costs $7 with various discounts for buying in quantity. You must order through check or money order, there is no online order system. At least not yet.

PENDANT PRODUCTIONS. A mixture of original amateur productions and fan numbers, the quality ranges from medium-high to low. The episodes are free, often include a commentary track for behind-the-scenes fun, and in a couple of cases have both a web-quality (the standard) and a CD-quality version. They also allow for others to produce their own, if you go through the proper channels.

RADIOARCHIVE.CC. A bittorrent site with a good selection of torrents. I have found a few good treasures, here. They tend to specialize in older broadcast rips from the various BBC Radio stations. There is a specific rule against posting "from CD" rips to try and make it more legal, but just keep in mind that someone might fuss if you use it. Many of the best torrents are kept alive fairly constantly, but some are dead.

Twilight Zone radio. An all-audio update to the original, very influential, show. The quality of production and acting are both high, and you can sample a few episodes if you want. Actually buying the show can be expensive. At $40 a ten pack, with buy two get one free, you are still looking at $360 to get it direct on CD or $260 to get it direct in download. You can get used copies on Amazon.com, but the price is still going to be about $300 total. At least at $2 an episode to download, you can get your favorites, no problem.

Spoken Network radio shows for sell. The prices are reasonable overall, though it looks like the format tends to be Windows Media. Not sure about DRM or actual quality, but once purchased you can chose from low, medium, or high quality downloads.

Wireless Radio Company. Nice little mix of programs.