Missing Suspense Broadcasts and Formats

There's a lot of information here -- a good opportunity for information overload! The progress made in recent years of finding Suspense recordings has been incredible. Suspense was always traded among collectors as if all recordings were basically the same and with the assumption that there was only one recording of each broadcast. It turns out that Suspense is likely the most recorded series of the golden and silver ages of radio, with many different types of recordings. Armed Forces Radio ensured that the series lasted in rebroadcasts even longer than its 20 broadcast years. There is still much to be found. For a series that ran for more than 900 broadcasts, it is amazingly intact, where only 13 12 singular broadcasts are missing. Every other broadcast exists in at least the form of a network recording, a professional aircheck, a home recorded aircheck, a professional recording made by a service hired by a performer or by an ad agency, a copy from the network feed to a radio station, home recordings of network broadcasts, Armed Forces Radio recordings, and home recordings of Armed Forces Radio broadcasts, and recorded rehearsals.  There are perhaps more that we have not considered!

This is a set of lists of missing Suspense recordings. All program numbers are based on the log at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11XflGB-S18jQ8JPr4EV1C9aZsRM_3Dw4xlLpGqgpBiU/edit?usp=sharing 

There many lists, of course, but the most important ones to find are listed first...

13 12! Truly Missing

These are single performances that were not repeated; scripts are available for all "truly missing" broadcasts; missing NY 1942 Summer broadcasts are likely never to be found and may not have been recorded; these 13 12 broadcasts are, of course, the ones that are the most important to find. Scripts for each of these performances are available. There is an effort to recreate the missing episodes  -- find out more (click here) for links to the recordings and other news.

20 18! Missing Performances

These 20 18 were produced multiple times on the series under these titles or a different one and have lesser importance to find, but would be thrilling nonetheless.

Likely AFRS numbers of a subset of the missing episodes

This list is to help those who sometimes stumble into Suspense in AFRS discs that they find. These are not the broadcast numbers in the log, but the numbers that would be on the AFRS label. For the last 10 years, all of the finds of missing episodes have been AFRS versions. 

Incomplete recordings

Missing first or second performances from the twice-a-week early Roma series 

CBS could not clear one night in its nationwide schedule when Roma Wines started its sponsorship, so there were two separate live broadcasts on different days. Thursday was the East performance, Monday was the West. At least one of the performances exists for all broadcasts of this period; these are low priority and most collectors are not interested in this kind of detail; this is in table format on pp 89-90 of the 2020 edition of the Suspense Collector's Companion book; log's program number is followed by broadcast day; dates are actual broadcast dates; many collections only use the Thursday dates, which is what kept so many of these recordings from detection for decades. 

Other east-west recordings 

The status of the east-west recordings for the balance of the Roma Wines period (September 14, 1944 to November 20, 1947) is too detailed to list here. The details are listed in this public spreadsheet workbook at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MjUe-QhxYYY4I9mvDI_ujFh3uMEtcEEzJdWSIK4GNSQ/edit?usp=sharing

I am used to going through programs and know where to listen in the recordings quickly. This is another area where most collectors don't have deep interest except for the Suspense-obsessed among us. One of the identifiers is the amount of time between the final announcement and the network identification ("This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System" or something similar). Suspense had east-west broadcasts only during the Roma run except for two weekends in August 1943 when it was still a sustaining program. More information is in the spreadsheet.

Missing network recordings

This is a list of studio-recorded episodes. In some cases, we have airchecks or AFRS/AFRTS recordings or others. For the periods where there were east and west recordings, this means that neither of those have appeared. Including the episodes where we have an aircheck, there are 67 broadcasts for which there is no network recording. Many of the missing are late in the series when production shifted to recording tape. Unfortunately, many of those tapes were re-used and recorded over after broadcasts, which makes the AFRS/AFRTS often the best available copies in terms of sound quality. If there is some confusion about exactly what has been found and what is missing, be sure to check the online log.

Missing AFRS/AFRTS recordings

These are episodes that have missing AFRS/AFRTS versions that are known to exist but have not been acquired yet. There are always AFRS and AFRTS recordings not listed here that occasionally surface and we are pleased to get them, especially if they replace a poor-sounding recording. This list is of known recordings found in catalogs and show lists that have not acquired yet. The list was prepared using RadioGoldindex (RGI) and Jerry Haendiges' transcription label site http://www.jerrysoldtimeradio.com/tdl-001/ (JH) and other sources. 

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AFRS/AFRTS Program Number Resource

This online spreadsheet tracks all of the known AFRS/AFRTS episode numbers. Click here to see it. Because the AFRS did not always apply numbering patterns that coincided with the chronological broadcast dates, this resource can he helpful in identifying discs when the recordings may not be available. AFRS issued Suspense multiple times over the decades, and there can be multiple program numbers assigned.

CONTACT INFORMATION

For further information or to advise about the finding of a recording, please send an email to suspenseOTR@gmail.com 

Joe Webb,
Wake Forest, NC