The radio ballad is an audio documentary format created by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger, and Charles Parker in 1958.
[2] A book about the making of the radio ballads was published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first broadcast of John Axon.
Set into Song: Ewan MacColl, Charles Parker and the Radio Ballads was written and researched by Peter Cox, published by Labatie Books ISBN 978-0-9551877-1-1 and has an extensive website which carries the first two pages of each chapter, the complete transcripts and cast lists for each programme, bibliography, footnotes and reviews.
[9] In 2021, west-wales based community arts organisation SPAN Arts, working with community development charity PLANED, and using a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, produced a new radio ballad entitled The Song of the Golden Road (in Welsh, Cân y Ffordd Euraidd).
The hour-long piece in English and in Welsh focusses on the bilingual rural communities of the Preseli Hills in north Pembrokeshire.