[BluesDuke]

A handy site for all things broadcast, both radio and television. http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=soapopera

Handier references, at least for radio:

John Dunning, On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio.

Leonard Maltin, The Great American Broadcast.

Jordan R. Young, The Laugh Crafters: Comedy Writing in Radio and Television's Golden Age.

James Thurber, The Beast in Me, which includes his staggering, five-part New Yorker observation and analysis of the radio soaps, "Soapland."

Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio.

Fred Allen, Treadmill to Oblivion (freshly republished).

[abb]

In my Amazon “to buy” list.

# A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States To 1933 , Oxford University Press, 1966.
# The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States 1933-1953, Oxford University Press, 1968.
# The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States from 1953, Oxford University Press, 1970.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Barnouw