About Us

WARNING! This story may be extremely boring, but it answers the questions I have been asked before and will save us a lot of time! :)

Believe it or not, I was one of three OTR websites back in February, 1996 I didn't supply content really (It was lame!), I was basically listing other sites, experimenting with the web, which was new to me. At the time I hadn't collected for 15 years either, but old radio was something I knew about since I was 14. So I made a page and desperately looked for links. (Hoping for what didn't materialize on the Internet until the advent of MP3) Eventually I gave up! Really the only site worth pointing to was www.old-time.com which looked like this back then & the other one was heritageradio.com/ and eventually I altered the page to do so. Eventually giving up on the listing services, trying to be the already established Yahoo!.Most of the people I knew were not even on the World-Wide web (That's what we called it) and I left my pages there, using it, but not bothering with updating for a few years.

On on whim in 1999, I searched for Old Time Radio again And found sites like wayback.net Which looked like this and OTR in MP3 which looked like this, Finally the Internet supplied me with the chance to build the collection of my dreams! The information was there and so were the shows. I no longer had to hear the same show over and over (that I purchased and waited 3 weeks to be delivered) , I could hear many others. I didn't need a tremendous disposable income to experience the great drama and comedy in the quantity or variety I wanted to hear. I could now choose between countless classic shows and rare programming at my whim. The hunger returned, and I started downloading and burning and encoding my collection. And all the additional information I used to spend hours in the library, searching for, is now at my fingertips- through the Internet. It's amazing that the old and the new can combine to such a wonderful conclusion of total access and communion of fans sharing equal interest in this artform. And like me, the MP3 format that had established itself in the last few years, has also generated a lot of "returning" and new OTR fans.

In Feb of 2000, I discovered shoutcast - I spent all night figuring it out and went to bed webcasting a show called " Walkie Talkie" (When I was 12 I used to play old radio shows through a walkie-talkie with my cousin. We switched between playing host and listener- hence the name) , that webcast was just my complete disk of Red Skelton shows. When I woke up I saw I had one listener - and I was hooked. Realizing my webcast name sucked(to put it lightly)and after trying various names, I settled finally settled on "OTRNow" and started webcasting "Suspense Marathons" during the week and various programs every Saturday and Sunday pulling somewhere between 1-14 listeners. Someone else started a Suspense broadcast - we abandoned that and went to a 24/7 webcast of our complete collection.

After discovering LIVE365 in the April of 2000 I decided that a continual webcast was the only way to build an audience. Our listenership has grown immensely, with over 6000 listeners a day. One of the reasons, is our lack of repetition and the other is straight presentation of shows without (much) DJ ego involved. Actually, I have never uttered a word over the webcast.

Many collectors noticed that the quality of webcasted programs were often better than what they had in their collections. I started receiving continual requests for copies of my collection, and I resisted for a while. But as the cost of webcasting rose (Yes I have to pay to webcast!) it seemed like a good way to support the webcasting costs. Listeners not only contributed the the webcast but received shows or DVD's in return. In 2002, I opened a small store, which today sells not only MP3's, but regular CD Audio discs, DVDs and books.

So now, thanks to the support of listeners and radio fans, our webcast is free of sign-up fees, anyone can listen, any time, any day, from any place in the world! In the end, it's fun, I am glad you enjoy it, and I think (in the end) it promotes a greater desire to hear more. I enjoy the email I receive, and enjoy that you enjoy it.(Notice the emphasis on "enjoy") With our newsletter members approaching 4000, and all the bugs worked I hope webcasting can survive and I hope you keep listening and we can keep promoting this great medium with a great historical revelance.