radio, meet your descendent - the podcast

Have you noticed that podcasts and streaming Internet really are the 21st century version of classic '30s and '40s radio? And it goes a step further thanks to technology because there are no radio frequency range limits. So as long as you have an Internet connection, you can listen to podcasts and streaming Internet from anywhere in the world. There are podcasts for virtually any topic you can think of. My co-worker's boyfriend does a weekly music podcast that has quite a following - people from all over the world send him CDs to play on his show, and his show has even been mentioned in Rolling Stone.

I've been building up quite the podcast library over the past year or three. A lot of the ones I listen to are writing-oriented, but I also regularly tune in to podcasts on creativity, a weekly yoga routine, Stephen Fry's podgrams, Celtic myths, and lots of audio plays. BBC 4 and 7 broadcast audio plays, documentaries, and even just actors reading books that you can listen to on the Internet, some of which are podcast-able, and there's also Wireless Theatre Company and Drama Pod. You can even listen to old-time radio on the Internet. How's that for irony?

Odd how with the advent of TV, radio plays more or less died out in the US, with the exception of what Garrison Keillor does on NPR on the weekends. In the UK, however, radio plays are alive and well. In fact, some radio plays get turned into TV shows and vice versa.

Did anyone watch Remember WENN in the 90s? I loved that show. The premise was the kooky antics of the staff at radio station WENN in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the '40s. Great casting with a bunch of theatre actors, period-correct sets, and amazing costumes and coifs for the ladies (ain't no way Betty Roberts could have really afforded her wardrobe on her radio writer's salary of $30 a week, let alone her apartment at the Barbicon Hotel for Women).

I think Betty had the best job - writing all the scripts for the shows the station broadcast - The Hands of Time, Sam Dane - Private Detective (Hamlet and The Maltese Falcon all in one), Wee Mary MacGregor, Beside Manor, The Vagabond. Cleverly, the actors were performing radio plays within the storyline of each episode. Unfortunately, this show never made it to DVD because AMC decided not to play nice. Still, I have most of the episodes on VHS tapes (remember those?), and there are a few clips on youtube. Amazing that no one ever thought to do a radio version of this series. Talk about ready-made.