Cooper stayed on the program until June 1936, when another Chicago writer, Arch Oboler, took over. After a successful tryout in New York City, the series was picked up by NBC in April 1935 and broadcast nationally, usually late at night and always on Wednesdays. In January 1935, the show was discontinued in order to ease Cooper's workload (he was then writing scripts for the network's prestigious Immortal Dramas program), but was brought back by huge popular demand a few weeks later. By April, the series proved successful enough to expand to a half-hour. The first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on a local NBC station, WENR, at midnight Wednesdays, starting in January 1934. At some point, the serial concept was dropped in favor of an anthology format emphasizing crime thrillers and the supernatural.

In the fall of 1933, NBC writer Wyllis Cooper conceived the idea of 'a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour.' The idea was to offer listeners a dramatic program late at night, at a time when the competition was mostly airing music. Lights Out was one of the earliest radio horror programs, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Lights Out is an American old-time radio program devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural.Ĭreated by Wyllis Cooper and then eventually taken over by Arch Oboler, versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from Januto the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. JSTOR ( August 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: 'Lights Out' radio show – news

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