History of Radio drama.

Radio drama first came to attention in the 1920’s and before the release of television in the 1950’s it was one of the leading players in entertainment for many individuals when unfortunately radio drama began to loose popularity in comparison to television. In the UK there is although still present popular Radio drama’s such as ‘ The twilight zone’ and ‘The Archers’.

The BBC radio stations such as Radio 3, 4 and 7 all broadcast dramas in afternoons at dramatical plays and some have the odd evening broadcast for example on a Friday evening and Radio 3 plays a drama called ‘The wire’ on Sunday evenings.

The first ever recorded English radio drama was called ‘A rural line on education’ although this was played on a American radio station called ‘KDKA’ in 1921. The first radio drama broadcast in the UK was a BBC production called ‘Danger’ by Richard Hughes of which was broadcasted in the year 1924.

America’s most famous radio drama to be broadcasted in both UK and America was that known as ‘ The war of the worlds’ By Orson Well’s in the year 1938 this broadcast was around 60 minutes. Another famous Radio drama quite a long time after ‘ The war of the worlds’ was the radio drama named ‘The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ by Douglas Adams and was aired in March 1978 and continued being broadcast until June 2005. The show although does some times get played today.

Then came ‘The Twilight Zone broadcasted in October 2002 by Rod Serling this drama was not only a radio production in America and online but had also been a TV series.

Next the radio drama called ‘The Archers’ with over 16,000 episodes by Godfrey Baseley. This drama is a 12- 15 soap opera based in the UK. This drama is today played on BBC radio 4 but had previously been broadcasted on BBC home service. ‘The Archers’ is one of the world’s longest running radio drama’s making it extremely successful with many people tuning into the soap to here the family ‘Archers’ daily happenings.