The run
- Network
- BBC
- Years active
- 1946–1953
- Surviving broadcasts
- 5
- Genre
- theatre
"Letter from America was a weekly fifteen-minute speech radio series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and its predecessor, the Home Service, and around the world through the BBC World Service. From its first edition to its last, it was presented by Alistair Cooke, who would speak of a topical issue in the US, tying together different strands of observation and anecdote and often ending on a humorous or poignant note. The series ran from 24 March 1946 to 20 February 2004, making it the longest-running speech radio programme hosted by one individual." -- Wikipedia Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
2 dated broadcasts across 81 years on the air, with 80 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2026, in original transmission order.
- 1. The Last Train Out · 7 Jul 2026
- 2. Night Broadcast · 14 Jul 2026
- 3. The Case of the Missing Hour · 21 Jul 2026
Dead Air
4 Aug 2026 · 48 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
Sign Off
28 Jul 2026 · 1h 3m
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
The Case of the Missing Hour
21 Jul 2026 · 26 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
Night Broadcast
14 Jul 2026 · 41 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
The Last Train Out
7 Jul 2026 · 56 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
Also on BBC
BBC in 1946–1953
Other series the network carried while Letter from America was on the air.
Same seasons
theatre on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
Theatre of the mind
Full-cast drama with a live orchestra and a studio full of sound effects. Lux Radio Theater and the CBS Radio Workshop are the direct ancestors of scripted podcast fiction.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Letter from America
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
