If Gunsmoke had followed the traditional, but strictly constrictive cookie-cutter programming format that most successful radio shows adhered to during the Golden Age of Radio, then it would have been a dismal, half-remembered failure of a great idea for a Western adventure series done in by the rigid production values of the era in which it was first produced.
Yet, Gunsmoke’s popularity amongst listeners and ratings successes were allowed to grow because of the network’s willingness to produce a regularly scheduled show without a sponsor of any kind for the program’s first two seasons. Gunsmoke came into existence because CBS Chairman William S. Paley was a great fan of hard- boiled detective stories : especially those featuring his favorite fictional detective Philip Marlowe.
Paley, who was “the” majority stock holder in CBS at this time, was also a fan of the “adult” Western novels of Louis L’amour, Max Brand, and Tom W. Blackburn, just to name of few. Paley wanted a unique, hard-boiled Western radio show that centered on the adventures of the Philip Marlowe of the old West.” Thrill to the Sparkling Audio Quality in Radio Archives restoration of Gunsmoke, Volume 4.
