Caltex Theatre
Australian commercial radio
Australian commercial radio · 1930–1960
36 EpisodesFortnightlyPGSince 1930
The run
- Network
- Australian commercial radio
- Years active
- 1930–1960
- Surviving broadcasts
- 36
- Genre
- variety
A Collection of Aussie Radio Shows No 14 Every Sunday night at eight millions of people throughout Austalia listen to the outstanding productions of the Caltex Theatre. The finest casts and leading producers combine to bring to dramatic life a special selection of the world’s best plays in an hour-long presentation of radio at its best.” Beginning in 1941 The Macquarie Radio Theatre, later becoming known as the Caltex Theatre after 1947, would become known as the premier Australian radio drama programme during the 1940s and 1950s. Sponsored by the Caltex Oil Company and Hanson-Rubensohn Company, Sydney, the Caltex Theatre featured one hour plays based on books and the top movies of the day a Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
9 dated broadcasts across 97 years on the air, with 95 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2025, in original transmission order.
- 1. The Case of the Missing Hour · 2 Dec 2025
- 2. Sign Off · 9 Dec 2025
- 3. Dead Air · 16 Dec 2025
The Long Silence
4 Aug 2026 · 55 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
Dead Air
28 Jul 2026 · 18 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
Sign Off
21 Jul 2026 · 33 min
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
The Case of the Missing Hour
14 Jul 2026 · 48 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
Night Broadcast
7 Jul 2026 · 1h 3m
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
The Last Train Out
30 Jun 2026 · 26 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
Signal at Midnight
23 Jun 2026 · 41 min
The episode listeners keep sending to people who never listen to podcasts.
A Room Above the Street
16 Jun 2026 · 56 min
A quiet beginning that turns, halfway through, into something else entirely.
Also on Australian commercial radio
Australian commercial radio in 1930–1960
Other series the network carried while Caltex Theatre was on the air.
Same seasons
variety on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
Friends in front of a microphone
Jack Benny and Fibber McGee sold intimacy: recurring characters, in-jokes, a house style. The modern hang-out show is the same trick without the script.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Caltex Theatre
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
