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=== 1960β2000: decline in the United States === After the advent of television, radio drama never recovered its popularity in the United States. Most remaining [[CBS]] and NBC radio dramas were cancelled in 1960.<ref>Jim Cox, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=o18qwF_TZIIC&pg=PA145 Say Goodnight, Gracie: The Last Years of Network Radio]'', pp. 145β148.</ref> The last network radio dramas to originate during American radio's "[[Golden Age of Radio|Golden Age]]", ''[[Suspense (radio drama)|Suspense]]'' and ''[[Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar]]'', ended on 30 September 1962.<ref>John Dunning, ''[https://archive.org/details/onairencyclop00dunn/page/742 On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio]'', Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 742. {{ISBN|978-0-19-507678-3}}.</ref> There have been some efforts at radio drama since then. In the 1960s, [[Dick Orkin]] created the popular syndicated comic adventure series ''[[Chickenman (radio series)|Chicken Man]]''. [[ABC Radio Network|ABC Radio]] aired a daily dramatic anthology program, ''[[Theater Five]]'', in 1964β65. Inspired by ''[[The Goon Show]]'', "the four or five crazy guys" of the [[Firesign Theatre]] built a large following with their satirical plays on recordings exploring the dramatic possibilities inherent in stereo. A brief resurgence of production beginning in the early 1970s yielded [[Rod Serling]]'s ''[[The Zero Hour (U.S. radio series)|The Zero Hour]]'' for [[Mutual Broadcasting System|Mutual]], [[National Public Radio]]'s ''[[Earplay]]'', and veteran [[Himan Brown]]'s ''[[CBS Radio Mystery Theater]]'' and ''[[General Mills Radio Adventure Theater]]''. These productions were later followed by the ''[[Sears Radio Theater|Sears/Mutual Radio Theater]]'', ''[[The National Radio Theater of Chicago]]'', ''[[NPR Playhouse]]'', and a newly produced episode of the former 1950s series ''[[X Minus One]]''. Works by a new generation of dramatists also emerged at this time, notably [[Yuri Rasovsky]], [[Thomas Lopez]] of [[ZBS Foundation|ZBS]] and the dramatic sketches heard on humourist [[Garrison Keillor]]'s ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]''. [[Brian Daley]]'s 1981 adaptation of the [[Blockbuster (entertainment)|blockbuster]] [[space opera]] film ''[[Star Wars (radio)|Star Wars]]'' for ''NPR Playhouse'' was a notable success. Production costs on this serial were mitigated by the support of [[Lucasfilm]], which sold the rights to NPR for a nominal $1 fee, and by the participation of the BBC in an [[international co-production]] deal. ''Star Wars'' was credited with generating a 40% rise in NPR's ratings and quadrupling the network's youth audience overnight. Radio adaptations of the sequels followed with ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' in 1983 and ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' in 1996.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Robb|first1=Brian J.|title=A Brief Guide to Star Wars|date=2012|publisher=Hachette |location=London|isbn=978-1-78033-583-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5l-eBAAAQBAJ&q=star+wars+national+public+radio&pg=PT76|access-date=21 July 2016|language=en}}</ref><ref name="allthings">{{cite news|last1=John|first1=Derek|title=That Time NPR Turned 'Star Wars' Into A Radio Drama β And It Actually Worked|url=https://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460269884/that-time-npr-turned-star-wars-into-a-radio-drama-and-it-actually-worked|website=NPR.org|publisher=[[All Things Considered]], National Public Radio|access-date=22 July 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160620103128/http://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460269884/that-time-npr-turned-star-wars-into-a-radio-drama-and-it-actually-worked |archive-date=20 June 2016|url-status=live}}</ref> Thanks in large part to the [[National Endowment for the Arts|National Endowments for the Arts]] and [[National Endowment for the Humanities|Humanities]], public radio continued to air a smattering of audio drama until the mid-1980s. From 1986 to 2002, NPR's most consistent producer of radio drama was the idiosyncratic [[Joe Frank]], working out of [[KCRW]] in Santa Monica. The [[Syfy|Sci Fi Channel]] presented an audio drama series, ''[[Seeing Ear Theater|Seeing Ear Theatre]]'', on its website from 1997 to 2001. Also, the dramatic serial ''It's Your World'' aired twice daily on the nationally syndicated ''[[Tom Joyner Morning Show]]'' from 1994 to 2008, continuing online through 2010.
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