ABSTRACT
The role of the Australian radio storyteller diminished over the war years. After funding cuts in 1942, the Australian Broadcasting Commission decided to axe the morning serial, and many of the commercial slots were discontinued. The commitment to Australian writing had been an early feature of the reading, and policy statements in the 1950s confirmed the rationale of the programme was to provide a broad range of listeners with the most recent Australian writing. The broadcast of readings began with stories for children, who were targeted as listeners from the start of radio services in Australia. The performance of dialogue by the radio storytellers played a similar game with the audience, drawing on the emerging conventions of radio listening where it is by the sound of a voice that the listener knows who is present. The agenda was broad, with sessions on adult education and schools’ broadcasting, as well as radio’s engagement with culture and democracy.
