The men behind these programs and the network include:
Jim Widner, 58, a collector of Old Time Radio shows for 35 years and computer educator. He created the first domain on the Internet related to Old Time Radio in 1994
John Grimmet is a Professor of English at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.
Brian Lane, 35, is an OTR collector and works for eBay.
Richard Smith, 36, collects Old Time Radio and works in Media Productions. He also hosts and hosts a Saturday morning cartoon show for kids.
Mike Tucker, 35, collects OTR and works as a small-press comic book artist.
And Dennis Humphrey, 58. Humphrey is a Johns Hopkins University graduate and has taught at the college and university level. He's been collecting Old Time Radio materials for 35 years and speaks for the group.
Radio Guide: Tell me about your Radio Memories podcast. Why did you decide to bring to life Radio from so long ago?
Humphrey: Radio Memories is the culmination of a love of the early days of radio. The mysteries, the westerns, the music, the comedy, all the way back to the earliest years of broadcasting. I and my colleagues all have a love of history that is rich many of the cultural icons that make up the fabric of our culture.
I am assembling a great team of collectors and radio historians, that will provide expert commentary from years of research and experience. This is a journey that each of us take as we collect and listen to the years before television, to the most thrilling days of radio, at its very best. We all desire to share these programs with the next generation that are discovering the wealth of great programs that are timeless. It is all about sharing what we love with others.
Radio Guide: Don't you feel it ironic that you're saluting the greatness of one medium's era with a new competing medium?
Humphrey: Competing? No! Changing? Yes! Historically, the early days of radio was very simular to what is developing today with podcasting. In early radio, anyone with the means could produce their own content and offer it on the airwaves (which was the new technology of the time). With the development of the Internet, once again we are on the treshold of repeating the exciting early years of radio. In a ironic way podcasting is just radio wrapped in a new wrapper.
Radio Guide: Do you think Podcasting is here to stay? It's certainly this year's buzz word. Where do you think things will go in the future?
Humphrey: If anything from history is to be learned, nothing stays the same, it changes. I believe Podcasting is following a simular path that radio took, perhaps therein lays the lesson we should heed.
Podcasting as with early radio, is free, open to anyone who can or wants to offer something or nothing. Some will drop off due to lack of interest or lack of listeners. Others will want to move to a new level of involvement, i.e., monetizing of Podcasting by pay-per-podcasting models that will allow them to achieve even more and make a living out of doing what the love or some other marketing methodology to achieve their goals of becoming self sufficiant.
Another group of podcasters will continue to be like public radio offering things simular to what podcasting now offers. A collision of ideology and capitalism is on the horizon. Cost must somehow be underwriten so there will be a bluring of the purist and the capitalist as efforts to find ways of supporting programs becomes a objective of survival.
(cont....)
