The Clock

There were some forms of storytelling that radio simply excelled. Crime drama was particularly successful on radio, perhaps because crime shows require a good deal of thought from the audience, and since they were putting forth the effort to listen rather than watch a story the radio audience would be predisposed toward an intellectual exercise. Science fiction seems the domain of expensive Hollywood movies, but stories which fill an entire galaxy are better enjoyed in the 'theater of the mind' which radio inspires.

Perhaps the best use of radio as a storytelling medium was the psychological drama. Anthology programs like Escape, Suspense, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Lights Out, and Quiet, Please were especially creepy. Perhaps they were especially adept at getting into the audience's heads because of the aural presentation, coming in through the ears they were already halfway there!

The American Broadcasting Company was a relative newcomer to programming and had a good deal of catching up to do. The company inherited some programming from the Blue Network when NBC was forced by antitrust litigation to divest itself of the Blue in 1943, but still faced stiff competition from NBC Red, CBS, and the Mutual Network. The aggressive young network became notorious for counterprogramming, the practice of scheduling spectaculars which are designed to steal audience share from an established show.

The Clock was a psychological thriller anthology which began in late 1946. The program had everything it needed to become a classic, thought-provoking and well written scripts, the directing talents of William Spier, and a wealth of Hollywood's "Radio Row" talent, including William Conrad, Jeanette Nolan, and Cathy and Elliott Lewis, as well as a fairly consistent time slot for most of its year and a half long run. However, the program failed to attract a sponsor so was dropped in late spring of 1948.

As well done as the program was, it may have simply been ahead of its time. Several years after being dropped, the show was picked up and most of the scripts from the American program (along with new material) and was very popular beginning in 1955.