Australian Old Time Radio Group
About Us
This site is brought to you by the Australian Old Time Radio Group, a group from all over Australia and includes several International members. The main interest of the members is not just listening to Australian Old Time Radio Shows, but also in researching and documenting the Golden Years of Australian Radio, normally accepted as the period from the 1923 to 1960's (inclusive).
The group have many ongoing projects as well as projects in mind for the future. Some of the projects include:
Series/Serials Database
The database of Australian Series and Serials is well under way. It is a special project undertaken by our Chief Researcher, Moris Sztajer, who has achieved some amazing results in the last couple of years. This website and the search engines that you find on the site are a testimony to Moris's research skills. Currently the database stands at over 3,158 Australian Series/Serials.
Programming Database
This database is only in its early days. By purchasing the magazines and other documentation, we are databasing what was broadcast on what station at all times. You can imagine the amount of work it will take to document over 18,000 days programming multiplied by the number of stations across Australia. It will take decades, but the project has started. We are always looking for programming information to ad to the project.>
Radio Clubs
This is one of my favourites. Collecting the radio badges and documenting the various radio clubs set up for listeners. This is where the listeners became participants. Many folk have memories of being a part of the Argonauts, Smokey Dawson as well as hundreds of other Australian radio clubs. We are collecting the badges and documenting the clubs.
Radio Transcriptions
Several of the members collect Radio Transcriptions and have done so for several decades. Transcription Disc are like LPs and were made for Radio Station use only. This was how the Radio Production Houses moved the series/serials to the studio, apart from live performances of course. Transcription Discs were meant to be destroyed after use, some times a single use and other times they were licensed for a period. Fortunately not all were destroyed and we owe this heritage to those who protected the discs.
Australia the OTR Exporter
During the Golden Years, Australia was a large exporter of Australian Radio Series/Serials. This was indeed fortunate, as this has meant that a lot of our OTR heritage that survives today, does so because it was overseas at the time. We are currently working on documenting the stories of our Radio show exporting.
Ongoing Projects
One of our major projects is of course arranging so that ordinary Australians get to hear Australian radio shows from the Golden Years. We are fortunate in that Screensound (Australian Film and Sound Archives) do store a large amount of our radio heritage. They are storing them for future generations and, we would like to hope, for current generations to hear. It is our intention to assist Screensound in any way possible, to allow Australians to listen to Australian Old Time Radio Shows, NOW! as well as in the future.
Research Support
Currently we assist International Authors who are researching areas that involve Australian Old Time Radio. We do this to not only promote Australian OTR, but to also ensure that the correct information is supplied.
Documentation
Several members collect books, documents, photos, ephemera from the Golden Years of Australian Radio. We will bring these to you on this website. All these items assist us in documenting Australian Radio Shows as well as Radio Stations and all the people involved.
Contact Us
If you have any suggestions, want to cotribute or just let us know if you like or dislike this site please contact us now.
