Audio dramas can be traced back to Clément Ader’s 1881 invention of the Théâtrophone, as presented at the World Expo in Paris. It allowed subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over telephone lines from their own homes, or via coin-operated receivers in hotels, cafés and clubs at the princely sum of 50 cents for five minutes of listening. 

However, audio drama as we now know it began to gain popularity in the 1920s with the advent of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Pittsburgh’s KDKA, and it quickly became more common than not to have a radio in the household. Perhaps the most famous audio drama broadcast of all came a number of years later in 1938, when Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds took to the airwaves across America. Due to the declarations of “breaking news” in the first half of the show, large numbers of listeners believed that a Martian invasion was actually taking place. 

During World War II, listening to the radio was a universally popular pastime. Audio dramas provided listeners with a much-needed escape from reality, as well as providing the world’s nations with a means of broadcasting propaganda to the public. The BBC produced series such as Front Line Family which ran from 1941 to 1948. It shared the ups and downs of the Robinson family as they lived through the war, featuring plots about rationing, the blitz and loved ones missing in action. This was broadcast to America in an effort to encourage the US to enter the war.