Planet Podcasts
Vintage

1946: The Year in Radio News

US networks (recorded off air)

US networks (recorded off air) · 1946–1946

50 EpisodesWeeklyPGSince 1946

The run

Network
US networks (recorded off air)
Years active
1946–1946
Surviving broadcasts
50
Genre
news

News from 1946. I usually share these via torrent but I don't think all these files are available on archive.org so here's a 1946 news file dump. Plus some V-Discs & specials. Any typo or error is mine. Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.

2026 · 312025 · 19

Source collection

Internet Archive audio collections

Rights

Public domain — no renewed US copyright

Cataloguing

Air dates and notes from the Archive item record

Every broadcast below carries its own provenance sheet — transfer quality, file source and rights.Archive record: 1946RadioNews

The shape of the run

What survives, year by year

13 dated broadcasts across 81 years on the air, with 79 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.

JFMAMJJASOND
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Clean transferListenableRough but complete No surviving recording

Episodes

Start here

Listen to the run in order

Restored broadcasts from 2025, in original transmission order.

  1. 1. Night Broadcast · 26 Aug 2025
  2. 2. The Case of the Missing Hour · 2 Sep 2025
  3. 3. Sign Off · 9 Sep 2025
  • The Case of the Missing Hour

    4 Aug 2026 · 50 min

    New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.

  • Night Broadcast

    28 Jul 2026 · 1h 5m

    The one everybody argues about.

  • The Last Train Out

    21 Jul 2026 · 28 min

    Short, complete and unexpectedly devastating.

  • Signal at Midnight

    14 Jul 2026 · 43 min

    The episode listeners keep sending to people who never listen to podcasts.

  • A Room Above the Street

    7 Jul 2026 · 58 min

    A quiet beginning that turns, halfway through, into something else entirely.

  • The Long Silence

    30 Jun 2026 · 21 min

    The one everybody argues about.

  • Dead Air

    23 Jun 2026 · 36 min

    Short, complete and unexpectedly devastating.

  • Sign Off

    16 Jun 2026 · 51 min

    The episode listeners keep sending to people who never listen to podcasts.

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 1946: The Year in Radio News

Modern series carrying this form forward.

If you liked this

More to explore

Chosen by the same editors.