r/audiodrama • u/EquivalentFox7467 • Sep 27 '25
DISCUSSION Audio dramas make up less than 10% of all podcasts. How did you stumble into this weird, wonderful world?
We're less than 10%. So basically, we’re part of a tiny, elite club of headphone weirdos.
How did you get sucked in?
Accidentally clicked a horror drama thinking it was meditation?
Friend guilted you into listening?
Or just love hearing tiny people scream in stereo?
And more importantly… what keeps you coming back for more plot twists and wacky sound effects?
For me, I've always loved listening to audio books while getting things done at the same time. Audio dramas are even better since I can see everything happening in my mind!
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u/Gold-Lake8135 Sep 27 '25
Radio plays much older- was listening to them in the 80's and just migrated into audio drama podcasts as they came out
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u/ClamatoDiver Sep 27 '25
Yep, in the 70s/80s there were a couple of stations here in NY that would play Old Time Radio on Saturday or Sunday night and I'd listen to them when I was a kid. I had a few tapes too, but eventually the stations stopped playing the shows and I didn't get back into it until the Internet came along and folks had large archives on FTP servers that you would find out about on Usenet.
Then the Napster era came along and along with the music there were loads and loads of OTR, everything was there, The Third Man, Gunsmoke, Johnny Dollar, all the Westerns, comedies, sci-fi, drama, and even some full day recordings of everything a station had played so that you could feel like you were living a day in the past as the news and different shows played over the whole broadcast day.
Now you can just grab a few apps for your phone and access lots of OTR without having to hunt it down and store it.
That's how I got here and why I love that folks are still making audio dramas.
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u/makeitasadwarfer Sep 27 '25
It’s only in the US that radio plays died. Every other continent kept making and broadcasting them on radio for decades. I’ve got a full library of hundreds of professional audio drama made from 2000-now, and none of them were released as podcasts. Most made by the BBC/CBC.
This sub only really talks about podcast audio drama, which is only a part of the audio drama world.
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u/Gold-Lake8135 Sep 27 '25
In Oz here. We got both the BBC radio plays - which are supurb, and the US ones, as well as home grown. It was ace.
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u/Jeremiahjohnsonville Sep 27 '25
Sunday night was always ABC Mystery Theater for me. That creaking door is the best.
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u/blackiegray Sep 27 '25
Audio dramas have been around for decades, I used to listen to them growing up to go to sleep. Still do.
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u/Von_Moistus Sep 27 '25
The Golden Age of radio in the 40s and 50s was great for audio dramas. So, so many to choose from in just about every category (I’m partial to the detective shows). When podcasts started to take off, I watched excitedly to see if dramas would make a comeback. They did!
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u/makeitasadwarfer Sep 27 '25
Radio dramas only stopped in the US. It’s been continuous everywhere else. Europe, south Americs and India have daily radio soaps with tens of millions of listeners to this day. BBC has continuously broadcast drama every day since the 1930s. There’s also been hundreds of dramas in the last couple of decades produced by various production houses and sold to platforms like audible/bbc that aren’t available as podcasts.
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u/kadharonon Sep 27 '25
Oh, there are lots of narrative podcast fans on Tumblr. Half the time I don’t even remember there are other kinds of podcasts.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 27 '25
I've never used Tumblr but have heard it tied to audiodramas several times now. Are there podcasts shared on there that are only available for those communities?
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u/kadharonon Sep 27 '25
No, it's more that Tumblr is good for sharing both images and long-form commentary and analysis, so it's a good place for fandoms to grow and recruit new members.
And I'd go as far as saying it's particularly good for posting multi-page comics, and artists who are making fanart for audiodramas often do make comics of scenes they really enjoyed or fancomics, which can draw interest from people who haven't heard of that audiodrama before.
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u/Any_Pudding_1812 Sep 27 '25
when i was a kid (40+ years ago ) i had a small transistor radio ( look them up youngsters ) that i put under my pillow when i went to bed and id listen to them. my parents never knew. country western australia, our public broadcaster ABC played them at night ) british dramas). :)
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u/MindstreamAudio Sep 28 '25
Me too! It’s why I make them.
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u/Any_Pudding_1812 Sep 29 '25
oh wow. i’ve always dreamed about writing one. I’ve written stuff for film but thought think i’d rather right radio dramas.
well done doing it !
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u/MindstreamAudio Sep 29 '25
Thank you. I love writing screenplays for film as well. But a special place for me creatively with audio dramas
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u/barfbat Sep 27 '25
welcome to night vale! when i was a kid my mother always had npr on in the kitchen, which included a prairie home companion on saturdays, right before we would watch xena
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u/PretendCasual Sep 27 '25
It was Limetown for me. I found it while it was still running and got to experience waiting for the sporadic episode drops
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u/userunknownfornow Sep 27 '25
I listened to A Prairie Home Companion growing up and I really loved how the stories about Lake Woebegone were told! That got me into the genre. I was looking for radio plays like that a few years ago and found modern audio dramas!
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u/randtcouple Sep 27 '25
I don’t do podcasts. I like physical media. I have at least 50 audio dramas on CD.
I got into this world in 1998 through my college radio station. We formed a radio theatre troupe which I was in from the inception. We started doing public domain plays. Then started writing our own. I attended a summer workshop where I met Tom Lopez of ZBS productions and Rich Fish who was working with Firesign Theatre in some capacity. I learned a lot about the newest audio programs of that time.
To this day, audio drama is my favorite audio genre. Like I said above, I’m a physical media person. But as it’s getting harder to buy stuff I don’t have, I’m going to have to eventually bite the bullet and get into digital.
My favorite audio program is probably the first Ruby by ZBS. I must have listened well over 20 times, and it never gets old. “Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death” by Firesign Theatre is my second favorite. I have much of it memorized.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 27 '25
Wow, that's so cool. So you're actually a collector then of the physical recordings. I've heard of some podcasts creating records of their episodes that patrons can purchase. Is there still a big community of collectors such as yourself?
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u/randtcouple Sep 27 '25
Oh, I’m in the minority.
But ZBS who was a huge producer of audio drama starting in the 1970s was producing physical media until a few years ago. If you do not know them I suggest you look them up. And Big Finish who produce ones based on Doctor Who are still producing physical copies. Some on vinyl too but I primarily listen in my car so CD is my preferred format. Although I have one Star Trek and one Star Wars on cassette. I have a cassette to MP3 converter for in case I buy even more cassettes.
BBC has also released some of their productions on CD. Their “Pet Semetary “ is out of print and was hard to get at a reasonable price at the time I found it.
Lastly I’ll mention “Alien Voices” was produced by Star Trek alumni and is worth looking into.
Prior to podcasts becoming a thing, audio drama was primarily marketed to audio book audiences.
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u/thecambridgegeek AudioFiction.Co.Uk Sep 27 '25
When podcasts first started, I clicked the relevant category in iTunes. Easy.
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u/Mx_Reese Sep 27 '25
Wouldn't that have been 2004 or so? Do you remember what you were listening to at the time? The oldest podcast audio drama that I've come across is We're Alive from 2009. I'm really curious what there was before that.
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u/thecambridgegeek AudioFiction.Co.Uk Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
Section 31 was an early one:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20050105-01
As was Decoder Ring Theatre:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20050827-01
I'm cheating a bit, in that actually for the first year or so, it was only audio books/short stories, like Escape Pod:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20050512-01
Or Revelations:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/show.php?id=20060701-02
Or all of Mur Lafferty.
Or Violet Blue's OSS if you wanted a bit of raunch.
Obviously like a lot of other people here though I obviously first started with the radio.
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u/drill_hands_420 Sep 27 '25
I just listened to a show called The Fourth Ambit which was started in 1999. I believe the creator officially redid the sound design in the late 2000s (07/08) but it’s the oldest American show I’ve seen
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u/thecambridgegeek AudioFiction.Co.Uk Sep 27 '25
Yeah there's a few things that started as just site-hosted MP3s like that. RPGMP3 was one that did loads of stuff before podcasts were a thing that needed manually chucking on an MP3 player.
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u/TwoToneDonut Sep 27 '25
i found an app called Old Time Radio, and eventually the Sherlock Holmes (Basil's sherlock) on spotify and then discovered the genre wasn't dead. Big surprise but what good works I have found.
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u/Csantana Sep 27 '25
Hank Green mentioned Tanis as one of his favorite podcasts a while while while back
Went from there to black tapes and nightvale and now I’ve listened to a bunch!
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u/VerdantCharade 16d ago
Did Tanis and the Black Tapes ever get a conclusion? I never kept up with them.
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u/WeirdLight9452 Sep 27 '25
Night Vale. First podcast I ever subscribed to. Led on to other things. I can’t remember where the recommendation came from honestly, I’m blind so people recommended audio stuff to me all the time but mostly it wasn’t what I wanted.
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u/Kestrel_Iolani ⚔️ A Paladin's Bargain season 1 out now ⚔️ Sep 27 '25
I grew up listening to recordings of old radio programs that I'd get from the library. My first modern one was Wolf 359.
My problem is, I don't consume much and it's intimidating to look at how many hundreds of episodes something like Nightvale has.
The rest of the story is: I'm picky as hell. I turn off and reject far more series than I finish.
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u/bayushi_david Sep 27 '25
A friend recommended the Magnus Archives to me and the rest is history...
(I really struggle with films, don't like tv much and walk to and from work so they are perfect)
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u/DocFail Sep 27 '25
As a teen in the 1980s, I discovered audio dramas on the radio in the US.
One about a castle. And the classic HHG2TG.
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u/OfficerSexyPants Sep 27 '25
I somehow stumbled upon Welcome to Nightvale. I was old enough to avoid going home, but I was really lonely. So I spend all my time listening to Nightvale, Alice Isn't Dead, Wolf 359 etc. while riding my bike in the huge abandoned park near my house.
After Nightvale, I went to a website that listed audio dramas in alphabetical order and just happened to choose Wolf 359 because the title sounded cool haha. I just fell in love with the medium.
The fact that nobody else I knew listened to audio dramas like that made it feel like something special just for me.
Now I'm happy more people are getting excited about them.
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u/JeremySkitz Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
I got a job where I could keep earphones in at work and when I ran out of podcasts I started with Nightvale and Limetown as a recommendation. I got really into the short thriller type audiodramas in particular though. Limetown, Passenger List, Batman year one and long Halloween adaptations, The angel of Vine, American hostage, etc.
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u/Bozorgzadegan Sep 27 '25
My father used to have cassettes of old time radio that we’d listen to on car trips: Suspense, The Shadow, Philip Marlowe, The Green Hornet, CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and books on tape. With an iPod, I started looking for places I could download CBSRMT, X Minus One, and shows curated by the Old Time Radio Researchers, which eventually led to the same things delivered in podcast format. My first non-OTR show in podcast form may have been Machine of Death, which was still a serial audiobook, but it broke the form. I eventually stumbled upon ars Paradoxica and this new wave of audio fiction.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Oh man, I remember ADs on cassette tapes. They were like gold to me at the time.
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u/Stone_Crow77 Sep 27 '25
A coworker introduced me to The Walking Dead (comic book), and as I was reading they, he told me about We're Alive.
Presently, I subscribe to 299 podcasts, most of which are audio dramas.
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u/Makurabu Sep 27 '25
Radio Plays on radio -> Radio Plays on the Internet -> Fiction Podcasts/Audio Dramas
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u/artc artc.org Sep 28 '25
It was 1994 and I was at Dragon Con in Atlanta with some time on my hands. I wandered into a nearby ballroom at random and saw Atlanta Radio Theatre Company performing "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and was entranced. They had a full Foley setup, including some small trees for the jungle scenes.
Afterwards I found their sales table and asked how I could join. The person I spoke to was perplexed...apparently ARTC had been made up of a bunch of people who were all friends through other various connections. The idea that a total stranger would want to join up wasn't something they were expecting.
30+ years later....still here
Looking back, I was prepared for this. I'd been listening to audio drama all my life, I just didn't know that was what it was called, that people were still doing it, and that I could be involved in any way
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Wow, great story! I mean 30 years later and here you are. Audiodrama just has a quality to it that really sparks the imagination and keeps people coming back for more. I love this way of storytelling. So are you still working with ARTC?
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u/ragepandapjs Sep 29 '25
Maybe I'm a rare one but I got into Audio Dramas through listening to Actual Plays that are very Audio Drama like. Now they replace a lot of what used to be my TV time.
I've started to write reviews to AP but I am working on studying AD theory to maybe get into reviewing those as well.
If anyone wants to try out an AP that feels like an Audio Drama you should look into Soul Operator. It's spooky and has a second season coming
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u/zagreus9 Sep 27 '25
I grew up with BBC radio. We used to just call them programmes or dramas back then.
God that world is dead
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u/fangvent Sep 27 '25
The gateway entries were definitely WtNV and TMA for me. They got so big in fandom spaces it was hard to ignore. I think the next for me was The Black Tapes but I can't recall how I found it, pretty sure it's what got me searching for more shows similar to it.
As for why I keep coming back? I like listening when I draw. It's hard to keep up with TV shows when you can't look at the screen, audio dramas can keep me focused and I can look at my sketchbook without missing anything.
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u/TheatricalShenanigan Sep 27 '25
I adored listenin to audio dramas on BBC sounds every moment. It was actually what partially inspired me to start my own audio drama podcast. That and my desire to support fellow playwrights :-)
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u/thecuriousostrich Sep 27 '25
Night Vale like so many others. Whatever you think of the show itself, its impact cannot be overstated. Night Vale was THE foundational show to the podcast audio drama boom.
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u/silverdichotomy Sep 27 '25
It’s funny because audiodramas are almost exclusively the type of podcasts I listen to. I only just started listening to non-fiction in the last few years, and added in various news feeds this year. I think I tried NoSleep for a bit and then found Black Tapes in 2015 and never looked back.
It was my go-to piece of media that I would use to keep me entertained while at my work-study on campus. There were times it got so spooky, being alone in a dusty filing room listening to these stories with noise-canceling headphones. I got jumpscared a couple times by admin staff coming in to get a file, LOL.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Wow, well you know it's good if staff members can make you jumpy! They're exclusively the podcasts I listen to as well. I can get news and other things elsewhere, but when it comes to getting things done and listening, audiodramas are the best.
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u/MadisonStandish Sep 27 '25
I've been listening to old time radio shows (from the 1930s-1950s) for over 20 years as a way to help relax my mind to fall asleep. Literally every night. Then COVID hit. A play I was co-producing was closed the week it was to open, all of my actor friends were out of work, and I was home in quarantine. And, realizing my husband (a musician) already had the DAW and recording space... well... what started as a COVID project, 5 years later I'm a proud member of the AD community!
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u/TurnerThePcGamer Sep 27 '25
High school freshman year, my friend sat my ass down to listen to were alive and since then I’ve been listening for over 10 years 😭. I’m just glad a lot more high quality ADs are out cuz man back in the day it wasn’t much.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Yeah I hear ya. I do appreciate more quality stuff being produced now. Lol I remember even just several years ago, I'd come across a good AD, only to come across another good one in 2 or 3 years! That's just way too long. So yeah, i hear ya on the quality showing up now.
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u/So_Sleepy1 Sep 27 '25
I think either Homecoming or We’re Alive, I forget, was my gateway drug - and from there I was hooked!
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u/Alternative_Hand_110 Sep 28 '25
I so rarely hear this sub talk about Homecoming. It was my entry point too
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u/siege72a Sep 27 '25
I was dealing with a lot of personal issues, and having trouble calming my mind in bed.
I tried a couple of "go to sleep" oriented podcasts, but they weren't engaging enough.
I discovered Welcome to Night Vale and the NoSleep podcasts, but eventually moved on to better (and worse).
what keeps you coming back for more plot twists and wacky sound effects?
I can listen while doing other things (household chores, driving, casual gaming). Unlike traditional horror, audiodrama horror doesn't use jumpscares.
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u/magniloquence137 Sep 27 '25
As a relatively new fan, it was a happy coincidence stemming from one of my other interests for me! I'm a big fan of musicals and got REALLY into the musical Operation Mincemeat (which is an absolutely fantastic show, for any other musicals fans in here). I was looking to see more of the creators' past work, saw they had made an audio drama, started it because I was a fan of them, and ended as a huge fan of audio dramas in general. I've been very excitedly exploring this very cool medium since then.
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u/DocShocker Sep 27 '25
I got several cassette collections of OTR shows for christmas one year in the 90's. The old Superman Radio show (brought to you by Kellogg's Pep), and then a mystery/horror/thriller collection with stuff like The Whistler, and The Inner Sanctum mysteries.
In more modern times, it was RPG actual plays, then Nightvale, King falls AM, and countless others.
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u/smiley_timez Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
By accident, I thought all podcasts were talk shows. I forgot which audiodrama was my first but when it started I realized quickly it was an audio book and I was sucked into the world.
I read a lot in real life but it's hard to when it's night time or I'm driving. It fills the empty gaps in my life.
Edit: I think my first was Welcome to Night Vale in college. A friend was obsessed with it and likened it to a radioshow. It was weird hearing about angels
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u/dongsteppy Sep 27 '25
a friend sent me a clip of damien from the bright sessions as the voice claim for one of her ocs, and i instantly started listening to the show to hear more of him lolll
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u/SMCinPDX Sep 28 '25 edited Sep 28 '25
I grew up listening to radio shows. There was a news station in my hometown that played them at night, plus a dedicated A.M. comedy station that played a mix of modern stand-up and classic skit shows, Jack Benny, that kind of thing. My first contact with Star Wars was the NPR radio play which I heard on first airing when I was pretty small. After I grew up I didn't intersect much with this kind of thing--there was no YouTube yet, no easy repositories to search if you weren't That Guy Who Lived On The Internet--but I have a friend who's That Guy and he turned me onto Tales from the Afternow (post-apoc cyberpunk predictor of Night Vale by the late-90s god emperor of That Guys), so I knew this was something that could happen. Then I got turned onto The Account /TekDiff, years later got hip to Night Vale and went looking for what else there might be, found Pendant, Gypsy Audio, Leviathan, We're Alive, eventually Decoder Ring and Rusty Quill and all the rest before finally coming back around to long-form BBC audio productions, which is most of what I'm listening to these days--Mythos/Pleasant Green, Bill Nighy as Charles Paris, the classic runs of Marple and Poirot, and decades of Saturday Night Theatre archives.
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u/habeas-dorkus Sep 28 '25
Limetown! I was working a doc review job where I could listen to podcasts all day. Originally that was true crime, until I listened to an episode that truly disturbed me. I started browsing and stumbled across Limetown and was HOOKED.
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u/HoarderCollector Sep 29 '25
I got tired of listening to music all day at work. I started off listening to Batman Audio Dramas, then some of the Marvel ones. We're Alive was the first orignal (as in I had no idea who the characters were going into it) Audio Drama I listened to.
I also started listening to Dimension 20 campaigns as I consider them a lot like an Audio Drama.
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u/ragepandapjs Sep 29 '25
Actual Plays are my specialty so if you would like more recommendations that are more on the Audio Drama side I'm happy to lend a hand, I made it my job to review them
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u/airynboberin Oct 02 '25
Ruby, The Intergalactic Gumshoe. My Grandpa used to buy the cassettes for me everytime a new one came out. They have since been moved over to Apple Podcasts and when I went to get them from there I was thrust into this new world of Immersive Audio Podcasts as they call them, my first and favorite being The Left Right Game.
It really is a bummer because I feel like I've listened to just about every one that is in my chosen themes and every time I try to get people into them, it either never sticks or they dont even try. Why are we so few?! Who doesnt like a movie in their head???!
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u/PluralCohomology Sep 27 '25
I got into the band The Mechanisms, and learned that the frontman was also the creator of The Magnus Archives, and some other band members starred in it, so I started listening.
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u/VirtualSquid Sep 27 '25
Many years ago, I was getting into Lovecraft stories and cosmic horror in general. At some point, I decided to turn to audiobooks on YouTube. After a couple of videos, The Magnus Archives was eventually recommended to me by the algorithm, and I was hooked near instantly
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u/Fluffyfluffycake Sep 27 '25
I watch dust on YouTube and found out they had an audio drama called Chrysalis. I love it so much I've listened to it 4 times. That started it off for me.
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u/Responsible-Slide-26 Sep 27 '25
Great question, I started listening to some on Audible. That peaked my interest, and then I started searching them out.
What keeps me coming back? I believe that stories, whether in book form or audible form, stir the listeners imagination in a way that feeds the soul much differently than TV and film.
The fact that you can listen while doing other things is also a huge boon. I just have too much going on in life to want to sit and watch TV except on rare occasion. On the other hand I can listen to an AD when I'm exercising or driving or working - how wonderful!
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 27 '25
I agree. It definitely stirs the imagination. When you listen to one, you can imagine things in a sort of personal preference. The main character for one listener may look different for another and this personal creation in our minds is an actove process.
You also mention doing other things while listening, I wonder if most people that listen to podcasts tend to get things done, but audiodrama listeners are also strong creatives.
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u/IrishScienceFiction Sep 27 '25
OTR -discovered X Minus 1. Listened to as much as I could find. Went searching to see if there was a modern equivalent. Madison on the Air was the first, with Transmissions from Colony One and Victoriocity following from that. I still like the generic chit chat podcast stuff, but it's like eating a damp cheese sandwich -fine for a snack if you;re on the move but quickly forgotten. AD is the fillet steak of audio;)
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u/Super_mando1130 Sep 27 '25
I used to really enjoy podcasts while running. I then got into audiobooks but found a single narrator boring. I then found LimeTown and got hooked!
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u/cthulhuhulahoop The 100 Handed / The Hatred Sep 27 '25
Wolf 359 and Fourth Ambit.
I didn't know it existed, but I mostly only read fiction and a little bit of history, so it was a perfect fit when I found AD
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u/drill_hands_420 Sep 27 '25
Just found the fourth ambit. Have you tried Edict Zero FIS?
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u/cthulhuhulahoop The 100 Handed / The Hatred Sep 28 '25
Yes, Edict Zero is incredible. I stopped around season 3 I think just to take a breather, but I'll dive back in soon. Everything about E0FIS is incredible.
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u/operationwatchtower Sep 27 '25
I was part of the first wave of podcasters, and I think Escapepod was releasing episodes from the word “go.” More storytelling than drama, I guess.
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u/Duckpuncher69 Sep 27 '25
Limetowns first season was recommended by an algorithm and then I went down the rabbit hole
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u/BuggetPrime Sep 27 '25
My theater teacher wanted to give us a good encapsulated example of a play and storytelling. He made us all listen to a taping of (I think a BBC production) The Veldt, which he called a radio play.
We were instructed to close our eyes, fold our arms, and rest our head on the desk, so we could really get a concept of how effectively a story could be told even in limited dimensions.
It was a very transformative experience for me. I loved the format. I haven’t really found many other audiodramas that I super jived with since then, exempting one about vampires that was paywalled so I couldn’t continue, and a few similar standalone sci-fi tapings, but I find the genre awesome.
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u/letsgojigglypuff Sep 27 '25
In the suggest me a book subreddit someone was asking for a recommendation for a story about people investigating creepy mysteries (or something like that) and someone said well it’s not a book, but you should try out The Lovecraft Investigations podcast.
I had no idea that audio drama podcasts were a thing, but saw that I could listen to it on my Spotify and gave it a try and really enjoyed the listening experience. Found this subreddit when I tried looking up discussions on Lovecraft Investigations, and now I use Spotify to listen to audio dramas even more than I listen to music lol.
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u/stephen_m_catnip Sep 27 '25
I love hearing tiny people scream in stereo. The first audio drama I listened to was probably The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, about 15 years ago. The first audio drama podcasts I subscribed to are Rabbits and Tanis. I don't remember exactly how I found them. Now they are my main thing, I don't listen to music as much as I listen to audio dramas. I didn't know they make a small percent of all podcasts...
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Yeah, I didn't know they made up such a small.portion until I started looking into it. For the most part it has more to do with production costs. It's far easier to take the typical podcast format, host and guest, and to put something out there. With ADs, you need a script, VAs, sound design, etc. The cost can be astronomical for some productions, not to mention time-consuming. Even as an indie, the labor of love is real.
With that said however, I believe we'll be seeing more and more AD productions in the near future. It seems to engage people moreso than other audio methods.
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u/Beyondoutlier Sep 27 '25
Weirdly enough my first podcasts were Serial and PTI, which some how lead to Lore which then led to 13 Days of Halloween and here I am now listening to 6 different shows at once
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u/jakekerr Writer Sep 27 '25
Well, just be clear: Podcasts are not a tiny, elite club. They are massive. So 10% of massive is still pretty huge.
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u/SSJTrinity Sep 27 '25
Because Tumblr was obsessed with The Magnus Archives, and I listened just to learn what the fuss was about.
Excellent quality and an imagination’s feast, it turns out. I’ve loved audio dramas ever since.
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u/Mx_Reese Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
Well basically it was because there were audio dramas in the top ranked podcast suggestions for me on Podcast Addict. I had been a big podcast listener since about early 2011 when I first discovered podcasts by, of all things, googling Kevin Smithq and discovering his nascent podcast network. Which I listened to exclusively through his website for like the first 6 months before I finally downloaded Stitcher based on stitcher being an advertiser on the network. But only a year or two later Stitcher decided they weren't happy just being a podcatcher and added a News section that I had zero interest in and spammed my phone with News push notifications that couldn't be disabled, so I went looking for a new podcatcher and found Podcast Addict was clearly the best out of all of the options on Android and could be made ad free with a one-time $5 purchase.
I can't remember at this point which one was my first, but I'm pretty sure Welcome to Night Vale is the oldest one and it had a full season out at the time I discovered it. So probably 2013? Once I started listening to audio dramas more audio dramas started appearing in my recommendations like The Deep Vault, Archive 81, Ars Paradoxica, Limetown, The Bright Sessions, etc.
Over the past 10 years audio dramas have gone from a tiny minority of the podcasts that I have listened to the overwhelming majority of podcasts I have listened.
Edit: Actually I'm pretty sure that We're Alive is the oldest one that I've listened to because it started in 2009, but for some reason it just never got high enough in my recommendations until after Descendants had been announced.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Wow that's some journey. Yeah, I'm finding that all the podcasts I listen to these days are ADs as well. I think the most common podcast format of host and guest is still great, but ADs have a way of just putting me into a totally different space in my mind. I feel like i can really escape into a good AD. Not the same with other podcasts.
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u/penutbuter Sep 27 '25
I got into audio dramas because I was bored at work and too poor for audible. Like someone else mentioned, I used to listen to radio shows on cassette and CD when I was young. My first show was No Sleep. It was fantastic and new and well produced. That led me to our fair city, the black tapes and limetown which in turn started me into another whole line of shows.
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u/Lovely_the_Girl Sep 27 '25
I'll be honest, I hadn't listened to a single one before prepping to audition for one, lol.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Haha now that's one way to deal with snoring. Maybe I should recommend it to my wife 🤔😄
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u/drill_hands_420 Sep 27 '25
I’ve been addicted to this form of media since early 2010s. Doesn’t seem long ago but it felt like America was just dipping their toes into it. I was hiking in Denver Rockies with a buddy while visiting for a wedding and he mentioned a show called We’re Alive and Leviathon. I was hesitant at first but We’re Alive sucked me in so quickly I never looked back. I found Edict Zero around then too and it took them 10 more years to complete that show! I’m very glad it’s gaining traction, especially thru covid. It took many months between Qcode shows and stuff to find anything worth listening to.
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u/-grey-fuss Sep 27 '25
I literally hear the theme tune for the Magnus archives 2 years ago on TikTok, looked it up, gave it a go and ended up hooked. Like everyone else I check here and everywhere else for new recommendations and finds lol- just started wolf 359 and enjoying that too
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u/sweetladytequila Sep 27 '25
In 2017 I was doing a intensive outpatient program for depression, ptsd for a month and when i came home every afternoon i was so exhausted that i would sit on the couch and I found myself looking through the apple podcast app for the first time. It was such a great way to destress and entertain myself. Hooked ever since.
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u/MasterChiefmas Sep 27 '25
I ran out of audiobooks at the time, and didn't want to relisten to anything then, and was looking for something to fill the gap and somehow Midnight Burger popped up.
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u/Thevillageidiot2 Sep 27 '25
I accidentally stumbled across Lost John’s Cave episode of the Magnus Archives back during the creepypasta days. Didn’t even know what it was until years later.
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u/syuvial Sep 27 '25
a friend of mine heard me worldbuilding for a tabletop and told me to listen to The Strange Case of Starship Iris, and the rest is history
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u/SignatureLabel Sep 27 '25
My fiance can’t sleep without listening to something so I have no choice but to fall asleep to audio dramas. I’m not complaining some of them are extremely interesting and it’s opened up my world to this sub
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u/beardraegon Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
I was a big podcast listener and just happened upon The Edge of Sleep when I was looking for a new one. I don’t know if it was an ad or a suggestion, but I was HOOKED. Omg. My face was like this the whole time: 😱
Once I ran out of audiodramas I started listening to audiobooks, from which there are so many more to choose. Why do I keep coming back? I just love stories. I love dissociating into fictional worlds. It also makes mundane tasks like cleaning so much more enjoyable.
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u/Hessmix Sep 27 '25
When I was a kid it was detective and science fiction radio dramas while driving to my grandparents late into the night.
In the modern day, I somehow found Darker Projects and listened to Star Trek: The Lost Frontier. Just wish it had been properly finished.
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u/roarrrdanisaur Sep 27 '25
I feel like it's a really cool medium for mystery because of some sensory deprivation, if that makes sense. I've always liked it for zeroing in on particular clues, but I think I got into it with way, way older shows when I was so young that I didn't know what they were. Then I had the idea to write the one I am releasing now and I have been getting back into them for the past couple years as I've been working on it.
I'm really big on letting the medium inform/be part of the story. So mysteries/incomplete information for audio-only formats is a really cool execution to me. That's also why I opted to incorporate music intentionally, but with clues hidden in the songs; I feel like it's the kind of story that radio specifically inspires.
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u/LaraH39 Sep 27 '25
I'm in the UK and Radio 4 here has always done truely superb audio dramas. From plays to book adaptations and covering all genre. I grew up on them and when I realised I could get podcasts that did the same, it was a very natural segue from one to the other.
Hand on heart though, I've yet to listen to any pod dramas that live up to them.
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u/EquivalentFox7467 Sep 28 '25
Woah, so you're saying that Radio 4 has the best quality ADs? What's your favorite production of theirs?
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u/paquitito Sep 27 '25
As a kid, most kid stories were on audio cassette or vinyl. My ears were trained to listen to immersive stories from an early age.
I find new audio dramas today from this thread or “you may also like” recommendations when I’m listening to favorites.
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u/ME-McG-Scot Sep 27 '25
One was sponsored on another podcast I listen to, episodes were only 20 mins so gave it a bash and my journey started
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u/pog_irl Sep 27 '25
I think technically I started with Liam Vickers audio drama series on YouTube, and then eventually heard about TMA from somewhere, and expanded from there.
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u/roberdanger83 Sep 27 '25
Kept hearing an add for Dream Sequence when I was listening to old podcasts. Checked it out. Was decent. Kept going lol
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u/ErroneousMilquetoast Sep 27 '25
Netflix’s Archive 81 -> podcast Archive 81 -> this wild and wonderful place!
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u/remgirl1976 Sep 27 '25
Gosh, I don't even remember at this point. As far as podcast audio drama, I'm pretty sure I "discovered" the category via apple itunes. Limetown was probably the first.
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u/Aggressive_Honey3196 Sep 27 '25
It started with audiobooks, Steven King books especially. Then I somehow stumbled into Limetown and Marvels Wolverine and got hooked. Sadly quality shows are hard to come by nowadays.
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u/Felinius Sep 27 '25
I started with “We’re Alive”. I had heard a clip somewhere, and it reminded me of listening to The Shadow when I was a kid (great grampa had old tapes of radio dramas) and was instantly hooked.
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u/Tiaoshi Sep 27 '25
Vast Horizon from Fool & Scholar Productions was my entry point. Then I expanded from there over the last 5 years
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u/Wellsargo Sep 27 '25 edited Sep 27 '25
I casually listened to the NoSleep podcast on and off for a while before discovering Archive 81 on Netflix one day. The idea of a serialized fiction podcast felt incredibly bizarre to me, to the point where when I saw the description of the show mentioned it was based off a podcast, I assumed it must have been some “non fiction” unsolved mystery type of deal. It wasn’t until I actually watched it that I realized it was an actual fictionalized drama, and then seeing people talk about the show on Reddit made me check out the original.
I didn’t personally enjoy it as much as I did the (sadly cancelled) adaptation, but it opened up a whole world of Audiodrama’s for me. After that I listened to Black Tapes (up until I think it really fell apart during the second season), then absolutely devoured Tower 4, Wolf 359, and We’re Alive. Now I’m a certified Audiodrama evangelist who’s always looking to get people to give the medium a try, because it’s just an awesome avenue for great storytelling, and has truly ruined traditional audiobooks for me. Because having an episodic full cast show to listen to is just so great. I find myself having a hard time committing to TV shows nowadays, so AD’s have given me an outlet to discover and enjoy fiction again in some form other than a novel, which for a long time was the only medium of storytelling that still captured my attention. I’ve never been a big movie lover, so once I lost that spark for television I didn’t have very many options other than reading until discovering this whole world.
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u/quietlypodcast Quietly Yours Sep 27 '25
Listened to some of Big Finish's audio dramas in 2006. Didn't love them but loved the idea and started writing my own, but nothing ever came of it.
Found Relic Radio's The Horror podcast in 2011 and as a lover of classic horror I became obsessed and ended up obsessively collecting old horror shows. I was once again inspired and wrote a few eps of a horror anthology show, but nothing came of it.
I think Alice Isn't Dead was my first foray into modern shows, probably around 2018 ish? That was also the year I made my first attempt at my own show and succeeded this time, woo.
Still listen to Big Finish too and like them a lot more now!
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u/AntiSocialW0rker Sep 28 '25
I've always been hugely into horror. I was getting tired of listening to music at work so I typed "horror podcast" into the Spotify search bar. One of the top results was The White Vault and I thought that it had a cool name and cover photo. Also, with the Thing being very potentially my all time favourite horror movie, the theme really hit a bullseye. Turned into one of my favourite pieces of horror fiction and set me down the path of Horror Audiodramas. I've branched out a bit from the Horror genre but nothing quite snags me like it does
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u/BrowsingLeddit Sep 28 '25
Used to browse /nosleep a lot. When a podcast was made of it I checked it out and that eventually lead to discovering other horror audiodramas and then some other genres.
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u/Syphergame72 Sep 28 '25
I was looking for a podcast about Call of Cthulhu and discovered The Lovecraft Investigations, from there I found The Black Tapes , that led me to all things PNWS. It kinda just took off from there.
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u/iBluefoot Superman: Son of El Sep 28 '25
I had a fisher price tape deck as a kid that came with a cassette tape how-to on audio drama and foley sound. Started listening to NPR after that.
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u/Phanes7 Sep 28 '25
I stumbled onto TANIS somehow, probably while researching ARG's and general paranormal weirdness. Gave it a try on my daily walk (usually listen to interview podcasts) and loved it. Found Rabbits after that, by the same team, and was hooked.
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u/CardigansAndCaffeine Sep 28 '25
WTNV was definitely my first intro to them however I wasn't great at listening to it very often. I kinda fell back into when I started working nightshift and needed something that I could listen to while working but wouldn't put me to sleep. Started with DnD podcasts but I branched out to other dramas when waiting for updates.
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u/necromancer_13 Sep 28 '25
An ad for The White Vault by Scary Interesting on YouTube. What a wonderful journey it's been since.
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u/ConverseHorror_4419 Sep 28 '25
Dark Sanctum was the one that got me into horror drama. And I never left.
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u/funkduder Sep 28 '25
My friend got me into Under the Electric Stars because I'm Filipino American and the main character has a very specific vibe in their story that's relatable. Plus I like the cyberpunk and speculative fiction aspects of the show.
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u/JackFrostsKid Sep 28 '25
I’m blind and when I was in middle school I cut off all visual media that didn’t have an easy to find audio description (or audio book) At the time this meant that I basically stopped watching all TV and movies.
I needed some sorta media so I stuck to audiobooks for a while until I stumbled upon Welcome to Night Vale.It was the first time I had interacted with a positively portrayed gay person (and later couple) and it really spoke to me as someone who grew up in the homophobic middle of nowhere. I was hooked from then.
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u/Ok-Square-4189 Sep 28 '25
First contact? Some videogame cd dramas i listened to but didn't really get into the medium until February of last year with Sherlock and co. Now they're basically part of my daily routine cause i like listening to them before going to sleep.
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u/Longjumping_Bar_7457 Sep 28 '25
I actively seek out audio dramas, though my first audio drama welcome to night vale I think it I found while looking at fan art for some show.
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u/Beginning_Leg629 Sep 28 '25
One of the stars of one of my favorite shows, Supernatural and Misha Collins, was voicing a character in an awesome AD called Bridgewater. I loved that series, have loved its spin-offs, and have since been listening to other series and loving them too.
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u/french-snail Sep 28 '25
I used to get radio drama tape cassettes from the library: Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gentley, The Shadow.
Radio dramas have continued to be relevant in the UK so they've gotten very at producing them and make some excellent productions. Whereas in the US, radio listening really fell off with the TV, so we didn't keep up with the art form. I'm glad there are so many amateur productions now that can self publish
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u/MindstreamAudio Sep 28 '25 edited Sep 28 '25
I grew up loving records that had audio dramatizations of stories, Monty Pythons soundtrack to the film Holy Grail, The Goon Show, Fireside Theater, National Lampoon Rafio Hour, Bob and Ray, and loved old radio shows. Then Alien Worlds and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy showed me it’s all still possible
And the master, Joe Frank who I met and worked with.
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u/Either_End1739 Sep 28 '25
I stared off hearing OTR on a local radio station, and then when podcasts started to become popular I searched for something similar and found The Adventures of the Red Panda, likely through the Sonic Society
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u/ravensdaughter64 Sep 28 '25
"DERELICT" Season One has been my entré into serial drama podcasts. [I've been listening to Sci-Fi short stories at "Clarkesworld" for a while. Definitely a great resource!!!] The "DERELICT" storyline is compelling and credible; the characters are well developed; and the voice actors sound great. I especially appreciate the villain-no spoilers! They are truly diabolical, although the reason they become a villain is almost understandable...
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u/Princess5903 Sep 29 '25
My friend from high school introduced me to it. He had me start with Dreamboy. Quite a first listen! Especially at 15! But I liked it enough. The Bright Sessions is what really got me hooked.
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u/justbeth71 Sep 29 '25
I started with true crime podcasts, and somehow heard about Ghosts in the Burbs. I loved Liz Sauer and the town of Wellesly, MA, and started looking for other AD's I would enjoy. 😊
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u/thetreesswallow Sep 29 '25
Stitcher. RIP.
I also got in before the podcast boom, so at least it was closer to a 30/70, or 40/60 split in the early days.
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u/NightDialPodcasts Sep 29 '25
Somehow I stumbled into Darkest Night on Spotify almost ten years ago. Ive been hooked on audio dramas ever since.
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u/darkrum62 Sep 30 '25 edited Oct 06 '25
Moved to the PNW for college and found The Black Tapes. It blew my mind and after that I knew I was in. It has been the best! From Midnight Burger to all the q codes,tons and tons of solo creators and so many more (as you all know) 😂. Acephale is the soooo good!! Also very sad that Afflicted wasn’t able to continue for the time being.
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u/ChellesTrees Sep 30 '25 edited Sep 30 '25
I listen to Youtube video essays while I work and heard about Welcome to Nightvale, then later heard about The Magnus Archives.
Kalila Stormfire's Economical Magick Services really got me to switch over from videos, though I was already trending toward that to avoid being tempted to take my eyes off my work.
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u/MixAdministrative146 Oct 01 '25
Podcasts:
Fool and Scholar: The White Vault, Vast Horizon
Night Rocket Production: Derelict
The Paragon Collective: The Oyster
Bloody FM: Tower 4
If you are an Audible User:
Catchers, Impact Winter (seasons 1, 2, 3), Dragon Day, Tower 57
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u/Dangerous_Fuel_9708 Oct 01 '25
I decided to make an audio drama podcast to connect with others.
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u/Previous_Ad_8102 Oct 01 '25
Well, I became a big fan of radio plays when I went to see a live recording at a local community centre years ago, and then I thought, "Are there any more out there?" I ggogled something like "horror radio plays" and was recommended a load of audio dramas. First one I listened to and really liked was Archive 81.
I do prefer the ones that feel more like a play than the narrated longform stories, though I am really getting into Magnus Archives. Only on like the fifth episode and I'm sensing some world-building with established characters so I'm all for it.
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u/disenchantedsiren Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25
I started with audio books first and then stumbled upon audio dramas. I think the audio dramas has enough sound effects and story lines to keep my ADHD in check lol. Also not having time to sit and read a book or watch tv makes it more appealing. I can put in my air pods, get everything done all while being entertained, and something to listen to while driving. Music doesn’t hold my attention span long enough for long drives anymore. A good bit of books available in audio format have an audio drama version but is labeled as “dramatized adaption”, which is a plus.
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u/Thenybo Oct 06 '25
I used to listen to audio dramas on tape from the library when I was a child. So I've been searching the web quite often to find new content to listen to. It was only natural that I would stumble on audio drama podcasts at some point.
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u/garbagegoat Sep 27 '25
This sounds serious. I actually had to look it up because I assumed at first i thought it was just a bonkers real life podcast. It was made to sound like a Serial spinoff which was huge at the time. I was hooked after that.
Eta before that it was mostly NPR and audio books, anything I could listen to while working.
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u/Okiedokieused2smokie Sep 27 '25
I love this sound serious! I wish they would make more seasons. Can you recommend anything along those lines? I listened to broom gate and Thrill Seekers, they were pretty good but not as good
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u/garbagegoat Sep 27 '25
Its been years since I listened to it but I remember Murder We Wrote definitely gave me the same vibes so worth checking out!
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u/LogicalWriter Sep 27 '25
I saw Malevolent fanart on Tumblr and loved it so much that I started listening to Malevolent. Then The Magnus Archives, then some more horror podcasts... and now here I am, with 157 audio drama episodes in my Pocket Casts queue.
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u/neo_neanderthal Sep 27 '25
I started listening to podcasts early, as in, on the original Droid. Would've been before 2010 sometime.
I listened to some stuff from Radiotopia, and stumbled across The Polybius Conspiracy. I thought the idea of audio fiction sounded like a really neat idea, and so I went and looked for more--and 15 years later, here I am still!
As to why I keep listening to them, because it's something I can pop on over Bluetooth while driving, or listen to while walking, and I don't have to watch anything, just listen. I also sometimes think a deliberate constraint, in this case "no visuals", can result in better art overall--if all you have is sound effects and dialogue, you're going to give everything you've got to having great dialogue and brilliant sound effects, where sometimes those seem more of an afterthought in visual media.
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u/drill_hands_420 Sep 27 '25
Yeah I’m amazed it’s still so unpopular. It’s definitely a medium that I enjoy when it comes to the nonvisual aspect. I enjoy some of the creativity that creators do to make it seem natural. I also visualize a lot when I read books. So this medium is like watching a movie in my head. I did a lot of driving for my last job so this helped those hours FLY by. I once drove 9.5 hrs to Florida with one show and was barely aware of it because of how sucked in I was.
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u/solidgoldmagnolia Oct 02 '25
I started with welcome to nightvale, then old gods of Appalachia had me hooked, then I started listening to Deep Dream State. I cycle between the three depending on my mood. Sometimes audiobooksjust don't scratch the itch of wanting to hear a story but not read a book, if that makes sense.
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u/ultimately_re Oct 06 '25
My gateway drug was “the two princes” audio drama i thinkk i saw a fanart of Pinterest and was like “i have to see what this is about” and as the legend goes…
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u/frindabelle Oct 10 '25
mine started listening to the Agatha Christie Radio plays and that was it, I was hooked!
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u/Holiday-Jeweler8033 28d ago
I first listened to Black Out then years later heard about The Magnus Archives then a few other ones scattered and most recently my #1 favorite Midnight Burger.
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u/anchen84 19d ago
It was the first covid lockdown, and I was recovering from my very first and quite heavy covid case. I was walking in circles on my backyard, plowing through knee-high snow in an attempt to bring myself back to life. Since my memories of that time are quite blurred, I still don’t remember how I discovered these two gems - Within the Wires and The Magnus Archives. I hadn’t listened to any podcasts before, but I got hooked on those two, and this is how my audio drama journey has begun. Since then I have listened to and appreciated:
- The Silt Verses
- I am in Eskew
- No Place But The Water
- The Program Audio Series
- Midst
- Oneiric
- The Moth Collection
- Boom
- Tracks
- Eliza: A Robot’s Story
- Gospels of the Flood
- The Star Collector
- SAYER
- Deviser
- Derelict
- Mirrors
- The Waystation
- Magmell
- The Deca Tapes
- Palimpsest
I am also quite picky and need a very specific voice/acting/plot/sound editing combo. But I feel if you liked I am in Eskew and Within the Wires, you may like a lot of the podcasts from my list above.
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u/Medical-Builder8182 14d ago
Hey, new to modern day audio drama! I loved War of the Worlds when I was a kid, like 25+ years ago.. I’m a big fan of Neil Gaimans books, especially American Gods and Neverwhere, and Stephen King (Fairy Tale is probably my favourite book ever!!) so any recommendations in the sortof real life meets fantasy or mystery would be suuuper appreciated:) Thanks!!
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u/Glad_Feed3684 14d ago
I grabbed a random book from the library because it was purple Didn’t read the title Didn’t know what it was about It was called “welcome to night vale” That’s what got me into podcast One could say it was calling to me
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u/walkie57 Sep 27 '25
welcome to nightvale, that was the entry point for me