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Podcast: Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting
Episode: BW - EP131—010: Orson Welles Is The Shadow—The Mercury Theater Leaves The Shadow
Description: The success of The Shadow was shared by Blue Coal. Billboard reported that twelve months after the premiere their sales were up nearly eleven percent. Blue Coal was selling for as much as two dollars per ton more than their competitors.
In February of 1938 Orson Welles opined that “radio’s future big-wigs will be college graduates.” By then more than ninety colleges offered courses in radio speech, while radio writing was taught at fifty-seven colleges, and fifty-three colleges were teaching radio acting. Both radio music and radio law were also becoming class offerings.
The last episode of The Shadow’s autumn r...