The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio The great ones are back in action.

Coming Attraction

The Lux Radio Theatre version of, "To the Ends of the Earth" will be our 500th Episode Special. I listened to the program today and it's fantastic. I look forward to bring it to you on September 24th. Below is a video clip from the movie the radio show is based upon:

Winter 2012 Listener Support Campaign

We begin our first ever listener support campaign to raise some funds to help out with the show and with us building for the future. So, if you enjoy the program, we'd love to have you participate.

We will be providing digital thank you gifts for those who support the campaign. These will be mostly old time radio plays and modern audio dramas that we can't play for you on the show, however they have been made available digitally. In this support drive, we will not help this show, but what we purchase will help to support the fine art of radio drama.

You can contribute in one of two ways. Either: 1) You can send us a donation by Paypal or 2) If you would rather mail in a donation, email me and I'll be happy to provide an address.

All Donations of $7 or more: Will receive access to our Premium Site with all the extras for Great Detectives and the Old Time Dragnet show included that we put on the app.

In addition to this, listeners who contribute $20 or more may receive one of the following based on the size of your donations*(limit: one additional gift). On this page, I list featured items only to avoid overwhelming people with too many choices, however, if you'd like to see a full list of options, click here.

When making your donation, please include comment indicating what gift you'd like and I'll send it along to you

$20 Donation-

A digital download of your Choice of several modern Colonial Radio Theatre productions. Among available options are:

• Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws
• Father Brown Mysteries, Volume 1
• Zorro and the Pirate Raiders
• King Solomon's Mine

Audio download will be delivered through Audible. They have instructions on how to redeem your gift on their website. It does not require you opening an Audible Account.

$50 Donation:

• An Autographed Copy of, Tales of the Dim Knight. (Available in U.S. and Canada Only.)
• A Digital Download of Your Choice of BBC Radio 4 Poirot or Miss Marple Dramas (Featured: Five Little Pigs and Elephants Can Remember)
• A Gift Certificate to Radio Archives sufficient to purchase a small high fidelity Old Time Radio set (about 6 hours) such as Let George Do It, Volume 4 or Dragnet, Volume 4.

$100 Donation

• A Gift Certificate to Radio Archives, sufficient to download any of their Digital Download sets.
• All 5 Perry Mason Audio Dramas from Colonial Radio Theater dramatizing the first five Mason Novels. (Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws, Perry Mason and the Case of Sulky Girl, Perry Mason and the Case of the Howling Dog, Perry Mason and the Curious Bride.)
• Any Ten Twilight Zone Episodes.

Paypal Donations must be received by March 5th  to receive your gift. Mail donations must be postmarked by March 5th. Donations are not tax deductible.

The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Comes to the Kindle

Every week, I post an article here at GreatDetectives.net and now you can have these articles automatically streamed to your Kindle by subscribing to it.

These articles can discuss detective stories (classic or modern) or classic television or movies in general. Sometimes, these are book and DVD reviews like this recent reviews of, "Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu" or "Johnny Staccato."  Other times, I'll do a series on a popular mystery series like our recent "Columbo"  and "Rathbone-Bruce" series we've done. Of course, sometimes we venture out of the detective genre entirely such as with my look at Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

With a Kindle subscription, the articles will automatically download themselves to your Kindle and be available for you to read right there on your Kindle. This is a nice convenience to everyone who has a Kindle and would love to be able to read about mysteries and classic entertainment while on the go. You can take the service out for a free test drive for 2 weeks with no obligation.

Of the course, the articles are still free to read off the website as that may work best for most people. Also,  if you don't have a Kindle, and you've enjoyed the articles, you can hit the "like" button on our Amazon page which makes it easier for people to find our blog, and even write a review to give prospective subscribers an idea of what to expect.

Candy v. Nero

In the course of planning the schedule. I have reasons for the show's I pick, but this time, I'm letting the listeners decide between two great detectives to be our regular Tuesday Night show after Jeff Regan and Father Brown are finished with their runs in November.

The two shows you'll get to choose between are Candy Matson and Nero Wolfe.  Below is a brief run down of the shows and the characters, as well as a link to a Sample episode, you can listen to of each show off of Archive.org:

(Candy Matson photo courtesy of OTRR, Nero Wolfe courtesy of Digital Deli.)

How you vote:

NO VOTING BEFORE SEPTEMBER 1st will be counted.

Vote for the show on Podcast Alley in the month of September and in the comments section, include your vote  You can do this by simply including the first name of your choice, "Nero" or "Candy" or even the initials. "CM" or "NW." Even if you don't normally leave a comment, just leave these initials along with your vote and it will be counted for your favorite.

Feel free to "campaign" for your show in Podcast Alley comments, or by leaving a Voice Mail at 208-991-4783. Please keep your comments brief and to the point, and they'll be shared on the show.

The winner will be announced on a special results podcasts on October 2nd

UPDATE

Fan vote is 40-19.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Who in the World is Listening

From Blubrry.com, a chart of where our listenership is coming from:

So of our first 500 unique downloads, 86.1%  from the U.S. and a total of 92.4% come from North America when Canada is added and 96.4% from English speaking countries when we add the downloads from Britain and Australia. A tip of the cap to our German friends for generating the most downloads from a non-English speaking country.

One thing is inaccurate about the pie graph. The 1% for Thailand actually includes downloads for 3 countries: Two unique downloads each for Thailand and Morocco and one unique download from Italy.

Other interesting facts: even though the majority of the audience (52.3%) is using Windows, a substantial portion of you (43.7%) are using a Mac. Which isn't a surprise given how popular Itunes is as a source of downloads with 80.6% of all downloads coming from Itunes and with another 5% going to I-phones, I'll have to say a hearty thank you to the Apple Corporation. It should be noted that 7.4% of downloads are going to a Zune player.

However you're listening and from whatever part of the world, thank you. And if you've not yet signed up to subscribed to this series featuring some of radio's greatest detectives, I invite you to do so.

Subscription Information

Below is the information to subscribe to this podcast:

Click here to add this podcast to your Itunes, click here to subscribe to this podcast on Zune, click here to subscribe to this feed using any other feed reader. Vote for this show on Podcast Alley.

Coming Soon: The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio

The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Podcast will begin one month from today on Monday, October 26th and will include new episodes every day Monday-Friday. A special preview edition of the show will be posted on October 12th.