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Although comedy was once a significant part of American broadcast radio programming it is now mainly found in the archives of Old Time Radio enthusiasts and in internet streaming of comedy recordings. Exceptions to this are WSRN's " Audience of Two", Garrison Keillor's work on Minnesota Public Radio: " A Prairie Home Companion" and " Comedy College", and NPR's Car Talk, a comedy show thinly disguised as car advice.
In BritainThe word Britain is used to refer to the United Kingdom (UK): i. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (from 1927), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1801- 1927) or the United Kingdom of Great Britain ( 1707- 1801). and CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe, however, the BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation BBC is primarily a national publicly-funded broadcaster based in the United Kingdom, which also has some international services. Some of the international services (such as BBC cable TV in America, Canada and elsewhere and CBCCBC redirects here, as this is the most common use of the abbreviation. For other uses, see CBC (disambiguation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation commonly known by the abbreviation CBC is Canada's government-owned television network and radio network. respectively have continued right on making new comedy and dramaThis article refers to the art form. For the town, see Drama, Greece . Drama is a term generally used to refer to an art form involving performances by actors, either real or computer-generated. These performances can be in a variety of media: live perfor for radio up to the present day and into the foreseeable future and there are always a few comedy shows in the week's programming on RTÉ in IrelandThe Republic of Ireland ( Irish: Poblacht na hEireann is the common term for a state which covers approximately five-sixths of the island of Ireland, off the coast of northwest Europe. It is the western-most state of the European Union. The remaining sixt. British radio comedy also has a home on Australia's Radio National.
Many of the BBC's most successful television comedies began life as radio shows. These include Goodness Gracious Me!, Knowing Me, Knowing You, The League Of Gentlemen, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Room 101, Have I Got News For You, (based on Radio 4's The News Quiz), Steptoe and Son, Dead Ringers and most recently Absolute Power. The science fiction comedy " Red Dwarf" was developed from ideas in a radio show called " Son Of Cliché ". Another science fiction comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy went from radio to television but also to books, website and various forms including the h2g2 project (which is both like and unlike Wikipedia).
Examples of American radio comedy can be heard on streaming internet radio stations. Garrison Keillor's " A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard on public radio stations in the United States and a different version of the shows can be heard on BBC7 and RTÉ under the name " Garrison Keillor's Radio Show". Old shows can be listened to online at the websites of "A Prairie Home Companion" or RTÉ. British radio comedy can be heard on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2 and BBC7. Minnesota Public Radio maintains a website where it is possible to listen to episodes of " Comedy College". A British commercial station " Oneword" broadcasts American vintage radio comedy as part of their 24 hour-a-day programming of books, comedy and drama and this is streamed on the internet.
Interest in radio comedy and radio drama is currently enjoying a resurgence. Epguides.com ( http://www.epguides.com ) which provides encyclopedic information on television shows has recently begun to build a similar list of radio shows at: http://www.epguides.com/menu/radio.shtml .