History

The series began as a local program in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, hosted by Carl Amari, who was the founder of Radio Spirits, Inc., which sells tapes and CDs of old time radio programs. Former CBS Radio

CBS Radio

CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...

 executive Dick Brescia heard an in-flight version of the program, and soon mounted a nationally syndicated version of the show (through Dick Brescia Associates), beginning Jan. 1, 1990 and hosted by Art Fleming

Art Fleming

Art Fleming was an American television host, most notably the original host of the TV game show Jeopardy!.-Early life:...

. (Amari continued to do the local Chicago version until shortly after selling Radio Spirits to MediaBay.)

The show was first syndicated by Dick Brescia Associates (1990–2003), and later Wilbur Entertainment (2003–2006), and Matrix Media, Inc. (2006–2007). In the summer of 2007, the series owner MediaBay announced the company would be going out of business in September of that year and the show was subsequently purchased in September by a group headed by Norton Herrick, former CEO of MediaBay, Inc. (the company that had purchased Radio Spirits, and thus When Radio Was, back in 1999). The company has since changed ownership again in 2008, and is now owned by the former Radio Again (although the company retains the name Radio Spirits). As of 2008, When Radio Was appears on over 200 stations in the U.S., as well as one Canadian station, CHPQ-FM

CHPQ-FM

CHPQ-FM is a Canadian radio station operating in Parksville, British Columbia at 99.9 FM. Island Radio, a division of the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group, owns the station.-History:...

 in Parksville, British Columbia

Parksville, British Columbia

-Demographics:Parksville had a population of 10,993 people in 2006, which was an increase of 6.5% from the 2001 census count. The median household income in 2006 for Parksville was $55,524, which is below the British Columbia provincial average of $62,346....

 and is streamed on the Internet. Syndication Networks Corp. (Morton Grove, IL) currently handles syndication of When Radio Was on behalf of Radio Spirits.

Hosts

Art Fleming continued to host the nationally syndicated version until shortly before his death from cancer in 1995. Satirist Stan Freberg

Stan Freberg

Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...

, then writing and hosting "Stan Freberg Here", a syndicated daily commentary for Brescia, replaced Fleming. Freberg continued in the emcee role through the first week of October, 2006. For a brief period during the early Freberg years, the show's announcer was the legendary Fred Foy

Fred Foy

Frederick William Foy was an American radio and television announcer, who used Fred Foy as his professional name. He is best known for his narration of The Lone Ranger...

 (of The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked Texas Ranger who, with his Native American companion Tonto, fights injustice in the American Old West. The character has become an enduring icon of American culture....

fame, who would introduce Stan with "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, on 'When Radio Was,' with your host, Radio Hall-of-Famer Stan Freberg!")

Veteran Chicago radio personality Chuck Schaden

Chuck Schaden

Charles Leroy "Chuck" Schaden, born June 29, 1934, is a Chicago-area broadcaster and historian who hosted the program Those Were the Days on local radio from 1970 to 2009. Schaden plays recordings of classic old-time radio shows and reminisces with radio personalities about the early days of...

 became the next host beginning with the October 9, 2006 episode, "A Salute to Stan Freberg". A recurring feature of this version
was "Speaking of Radio...", featuring excerpts from Chuck's historic interviews with many of the stars and "behind the scenes" people responsible for the classic shows (also a feature of Chuck's long-running "Those Were The Days"). It was at this time that the series expanded to seven shows per week (a format which continues with the Greg Bell version).

Illinois native Greg Bell, host and programmer for the Radio Classics

Radio Classics

Radio Classics is a US old time radio network owned by RSPT LLC. It provides the programming content for Sirius XM Radio's 24-hour satellite radio channel of the same name. Radio Classics also syndicates the Radio Spirits-branded program When Radio Was weekly to over 200 terrestrial radio stations...

channel on Sirius XM Radio, became the fourth national host of the series as of October 8, 2007. The longtime When Radio Was theme music, titled "Swing and Sway," has been discontinued with the Bell series.

In addition to opening and closing the show, the host introduces the radio programs, usually mentioning such facts as their original airdates (when available) and incidental trivia.

Typical programs

When Radio Was re-airs a wide variety of old time radio shows, typically pairing a drama and comedy, but the most frequent programs are noted below:

• Westerns
  Western (genre)
  The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
  
  : Gunsmoke; Have Gun – Will Travel; Tales of the Texas Rangers
  Tales of the Texas Rangers
  Tales of the Texas Rangers, a western adventure old-time radio drama, premiered on July 8, 1950, on the US NBC radio network and remained on the air through September 14, 1952...
  
  ; The Lone Ranger.
• Crime Dramas: Dragnet; Gang Busters
  Gang Busters
  Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered as G-Men, sponsored by Chevrolet, on July 20, 1935.-History:...
  
  ; The Shadow; The Green Hornet.
• Comedies
  Comedy
  Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
  
  : Our Miss Brooks; The Great Gildersleeve
  The Great Gildersleeve
  The Great Gildersleeve , initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first Introduced to...
  
  ; The Jack Benny Program; Fibber McGee & Molly; The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show.
• Drama
  Drama
  Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
  
  s: Lux Radio Theatre; Campbell Playhouse; Escape
  Escape (radio program)
  Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure radio dramas, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. Since the program did not have a regular sponsor like Suspense, it was subjected to frequent schedule shifts and lower production budgets, although Richfield Oil signed...
  
  ; Suspense.
• Private Eyes & Detectives: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
  Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
  Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was a radio drama of "the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account — America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator." The show aired on CBS Radio from January 14, 1949 to September 30, 1962...
  
  ; The Adventures of Sam Spade
  The Adventures of Sam Spade
  The Adventures of Sam Spade was a radio series based loosely on the private detective character Sam Spade, created by writer Dashiell Hammett for The Maltese Falcon. The show ran for 13 episodes on ABC in 1946, for 157 episodes on CBS in 1946-1949, and finally for 51 episodes on NBC in 1949-1951...
  
  ; Sherlock Holmes; The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.
• Science Fiction
  Science fiction
  Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
  
  : Dimension X
  Dimension X
  Dimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
  
  ; X Minus One
  X Minus One
  X Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC.-Overview:...
  
  .

External links

• "When Radio Was" official website. (A part of the Radio Spirits website).