# Oldest Radio Recording Extant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** radio-podcast\ **Created:** [December 8, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715 "2003-12-08T07:10:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/1 "2003-12-08T07:10:23Z")
There’s lots of radio broadcasts from the 1940’s and 1950’s around in the form of audiotape and on the internet, but what is the oldest radio entertainment broadcast still extant and available to the listening public? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/2 "2003-12-08T20:27:58Z")
Radio Yesteryear and the Library of Congress have recordings of several _Amos ‘n’ Andy_ shows broadcast on NBC in 1929. The Library of Congress has an earlier NBC radio broadcast of Charles Lindbergh’s reception with President Coolidge in Washington in June 1927 following his historical trans-Atlantic flight. The archives of the BBC probably have recordings of broadcasts from the 1920s too. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/3 "2003-12-08T20:38:02Z")
In fact, [this page](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/1204729.stm) at the BBC website has several on-line clips of broadcasts from the 1920s, although no entertainment shows. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/4 "2003-12-08T20:47:11Z")
Anybody curious about [the world’s earliest television recordings](http://www.tvdawn.com/index.htm)? From 1927-28! ---
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/5 "2003-12-08T21:34:08Z")
Thanks Walloon! Yeah, it’s too bad we don’t have more radio broadcasts from the 1920’s. But I guess they just didn’t think anybody would want to hear it 80 years later, that and it was rather difficult technologically. Its funny, one of the few reasons so many broadcasts survive from the 1940’s is World War II, when the Army requested recordings to keep up the morale of the troops. Man, Amos and Andy, it’s amazing when you think about it, such a short time 80 years, and yet a show that was seemingly ubiquitous and the dominating force in American entertainment, just a couple decades later is incredibly dated and with good reason treated with shame and careful propriety. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Curious\_Writer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@A\_Curious\_Writer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Curious_Writer)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/6 "2003-12-08T22:44:59Z")
Awesome, I love old stuff like this. First thing I “did” in the yahoogroups ISOT game i mentioned was invent the phonograph (a pretty easy tech) and get recordings of surviving Declaration of Independence and Constitution signers - it’s a shame nobody thought to save recordings very much in real life. (I have heard numerous more phonograph ones than real radio ones, howevermaybe they just felt phonographs were more worth saving ing eneral. That’s what they were there for.) I loved those early BBC ones, thanks. That rugby one was interesting, especailly b/c I have a CD each of old time sports & news broadcasts I got for Christmas a few years back; one was a 1932 World Series game (the time Babe Ruth pointed to center, supposedly caling his shot on a home run he hit a moment later), and it’s interesting how much less commentary there was, at least by American sports announcers; same with a World Series call of a 1936 or so game. Much more like neitral reporting. Whereas the English announcer there automatically compliments one of the players in that recording on that site. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2003, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/7 "2003-12-08T22:58:47Z")
Maybe this list of links will help: [http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/nsalinks.html](http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/nsalinks.html) And slightly off-topic, given that it’s not radio, but I found a 1890 recording of Florence Nightingale here: [http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/5?searchdata1=nighti56.ram&library=ALL](http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/5?searchdata1=nighti56.ram&library=ALL) ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/8 "2003-12-09T00:56:38Z")
You could check the site [www.radiogoldindex.com](http://www.radiogoldindex.com), as it is a set of lists of surviving (mostly American) radio programs. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/9 "2003-12-09T01:01:43Z")
The link does not work. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/10 "2003-12-09T01:22:41Z")
Sorry, it’s [www.radiogoldindex.com](http://www.radiogoldindex.com) ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/11 "2003-12-09T01:24:54Z")
And that link does work! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/12 "2003-12-09T01:45:10Z")
Works for me. And I’m bookmarking it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/13 "2003-12-09T03:03:07Z")
Bookmarking also. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/14 "2003-12-09T10:59:16Z")
I understand that there are some early recordings of horse races going back to the 1890’s. However, that may be silent film rather than a radio recording. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/15 "2003-12-09T11:09:29Z")
[Documenting Early Radio: A Review of Existing Pre-1932 Radio Recordings.](http://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/earlyradio.html) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/16 "2003-12-09T11:26:44Z")
**Cicero** , you’re thinking of Eadweard [Muybridge](http://www.masters-of-photography.com/M/muybridge/muybridge_articles2.html)’s photographs of running horses, made in the 1870s using arrays of still cameras. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/17 "2003-12-09T13:46:58Z")
Harry Von Zell’s classic blooper (“Hoobert Heever”) was recorded during the Hoover administration (1928-1932). (aside) Harry Von Zell had a very long and distringuished career as a radio and television announcer, working with Jack Benny and many others. When he died, sometime in the 1980s (I think), what was in the first sentence of his obituary? The 1928 screwup. As they say, “When you’re right no one remembers. When you’re wrong, no one forgets.” ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/18 "2003-12-09T19:14:42Z")
The Hoover administration was March 1929-March 1933. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/19 "2003-12-09T19:22:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GorillaMan \* > \*\*Maybe this list of links will help: [http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/nsalinks.html](http://www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/nsalinks.html) > > And slightly off-topic, given that it’s not radio, but I found a 1890 recording of Florence Nightingale here: [http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/5?searchdata1=nighti56.ram&library=ALL](http://cadensa.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/0/5?searchdata1=nighti56.ram&library=ALL) \*\* Again, off-topic, but when I was working on a research project some years ago, I found out that a university in…Virginia, I believe has a recording of Tennyson reading one of his own poems. Very cool stuff. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715/20 "2003-12-09T20:11:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Walloon \* > \*\*The Hoover administration was March 1929-March 1933. \*\* True enough…the elections were in 1928 and 1932. The adminstration was inaugurated the following March and ran through the March following the 1932 election. This is is one of those things that “everyone knows about and blithly ignores”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oldest-radio-recording-extant/217715.md?page=2)