1938: The Year in Radio News
US networks (recorded off air)
US networks (recorded off air) · 1938–1938
44 EpisodesSeasonalPGSince 1938
The run
- Network
- US networks (recorded off air)
- Years active
- 1938–1938
- Surviving broadcasts
- 44
- Genre
- news
News from 1938. I usually share these via torrent but I don't think all these files are available on archive.org so here's a 1938 news file dump. Plus roller derby. :) Any typo or error is mine. 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
11 dated broadcasts across 89 years on the air, with 87 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. Dead Air · 7 Oct 2025
- 2. The Long Silence · 14 Oct 2025
- 3. A Room Above the Street · 21 Oct 2025
Signal at Midnight
4 Aug 2026 · 41 min
The one everybody argues about.
A Room Above the Street
28 Jul 2026 · 56 min
Short, complete and unexpectedly devastating.
The Long Silence
21 Jul 2026 · 19 min
The episode listeners keep sending to people who never listen to podcasts.
Dead Air
14 Jul 2026 · 34 min
A quiet beginning that turns, halfway through, into something else entirely.
Sign Off
7 Jul 2026 · 49 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
The Case of the Missing Hour
30 Jun 2026 · 1h 4m
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
Night Broadcast
23 Jun 2026 · 27 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
The Last Train Out
16 Jun 2026 · 42 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
Same seasons
news on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The broadcast desk
Wartime correspondence and Cavalcade of America established the daily explainer and the narrated history hour long before either had a feed.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of 1938: The Year in Radio News
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
