In the latter case, many of those recordings were lost, or are in private collections.
I read an article about "The Shadow", and there were on the order of a 1000 shows, but only around 800 are publicly available, with some number in private hands, and the rest gone.
I read an article about "The Shadow", and there were on the order of a 1000 shows, but only around 800 are publicly available, with some number in private hands, and the rest gone.Happily enough, so far as I know, these radio series are actually available in their complete or near-complete runs:
Bob & Ray Present the CBS Radio Network
Broadway is My Beat
The CBS Radio Workshop
Dragnet
Fibber McGee & Molly (This includes the fifteen-minute semi-serial version of 1954-56, and a generous helping of the five-minute sketches they did for NBC Monitor---the weekend radio magazine-style block of the late fifties through the early 1970s---for about three years before co-star Marian Jordan's death.)
The Great Gildersleeve (Though, in fairness, it's the Harold Peary originals you really want, from 1942-50; Willard Waterman might have been a soundalike but he was no Harold Peary.)
Gunsmoke
The Halls of Ivy (Ronald Colman starred in this.)
The Jack Benny Program
The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show
Suspense