Listener’s Choice

Listen to “The Great Detectives Present Listener's Choice” on Spreaker.

 

Standard Division Winners

20. Rocky Fortune
19. Sherlock Holmes with Tom Conway
18. Ellery Queen
17 Yours Truly Johnny Dollar with Charles Russell
16. Rogue’s Gallery
15. Boston Blackie
14. Candy Matson
13. Pat Novak for Hire
12. Yours Truly Johnny Dollar with Mandel Kramer
11. The Saint with Vincent Price
10. Let George Do It with Bob Bailey
9. Night Beat
8. Rocky Jordan
6. (Tied) Dragnet
6. (Tied) Box 13
5. Richard Diamond
3. (Tied) Philip Marlowe
3. (Tied) Nero Wolfe
2. Sherlock Holmes
1. Yours Truly Johnny Dollar

Short Division Winners

5. Pete Kelly’s Blues
4. Philip Marlowe
3. The Fat Man
2. Boston Blackie with Chester Morris
1. Hercule Poirot

Host’s Choice (Wildcards)

The Abbotts
Easy Money
Jeff Regan with Frank Graham
Sherlock Holmes with John Gieglud
Barrie Craig

Preliminary Round Listener’s Choice Result

Our first round of voting in our Listener’s Choice Poll is over.  Nearly 400 voters winnowed the choices in our standard division from forty-nine to thirty-two.

Barrie Craig Boston Blackie (Richard Kollmar) Box 13 Candy Matson
Dragnet Ellery Queen Jeff Regan (Jack Webb) Let George Do It
The Line Up Michael Shayne (Jeff Chandler) Michael Shayne (Wally Maher) Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons (Bennett Kilpack)
Nero Wolfe (Sidney Greenstreet) Nick Carter Night Beat Pat Novak for Hire (Jack Webb)
Philip Marlowe (Gerald Mohr) Richard
Diamond
Rocky Fortune Rocky Jordan
Rogue’s Gallery (Dick Powell) The Saint
(Vincent Price)
Sherlock
Holmes (Basil Rathbone)
Sherlock Holmes (John Gielgud)
Sherlock
Holmes (John
Stanley)
Sherlock
Holmes (Tom
Conway)
Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar (Bob Bailey)
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar (Bob
Readick)
Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar
(Charles
Russell)
Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar
(Edmond
O’Brien)
Yours Truly
Johnny Dollar (John Lund)
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar (Mandel Kramer)

Preliminary Results: Heat 1 (Table)

Preliminary Results: Heat 2 (Table)

Over the past ten seasons, we’ve done a lot of old-time radio detective programs. We aim to go through each series from its earliest episode to its last existing program. The Listener’s Choice vote will serve to allow fans to vote on their favorites. In addition, in the second half of the Great Detectives of Old Time radio season, most Monday shows will be dedicated to counting down the Listener’s Choice favorites.

There will be two divisions in the listener’s choice voting process.

First is our standard division. This applies to every series for which eleven or more episodes are available. The top twenty series from the standard division will be chosen by fans. The second division is our short division for programs where only three to ten episodes are available. The top five winners from the short division will be chosen by fans.

Multiple Leads:

For the purpose of the Listener’s Choice vote, if a series had multiple leads, then each lead’s run will be considered separately. For example, there’s a different feel to the Michael Shayne episodes starring Wally Maher and those starring Jeff Chandler.

Similarly, Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone has a different feel than Sherlock Holmes starring John Stanley or John Gielgud. So our survey will allow listeners to choose between their favorite runs of a series for each lead with at least three episodes.

One exception to this rule is when a series has more than ten episodes in circulation but no single lead has more than ten surviving episodes. In this case, the series will be in the standard division with no lead differentiation.

Voting Method:

We will be using Ranked Choice voting via Demochoice polls to determine the rankings of the series. In Ranked Choice voting, you’ll rank each series from your favorite to least favorite. Those rankings will be used to tabulate the winners. For more details on how the system works, click here.

If you’ve not heard all of your shows and would like to listen to them, check out our Big List of Detective Old Time radio shows.

In January 2019, a preliminary round will be held to winnow the existing field of 49 standard series to 32. The poll will close on January 24th 2019. The results will be announced on the February 4th 2019 episode of Mister Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons at which point, the final poll for the standard division and the poll for the short division will be posted. The poll will continue until February 27th 2019. The results will be revealed in countdowns during the Listener’s Choice weeks rather than released all at once.

Patreon Supporter Benefits:

Listeners who support the Great Detectives of Old Time radio through our Patreon will receive additional benefits. Patreon supporters will be allowed to vote early and will be notified of the preliminary standard division poll early. In addition, during the Listener’s Choice period, I will notify Patreon supporters of which series we’ll be doing next month, and they will have an opportunity to nominate a favorite episode.

Programming and Host Choice

The Listener’s choice countdown will begin on March 25th, 2019 and will conclude with the last Monday show in the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio tenth season on October 21, 2019. The countdown will be interrupted to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of Dragnet in June.

In addition, the twenty-five listener’s choice selections would not be sufficient to cover every Monday in this period. There will be five Host Choice wildcard selections of programs the series has done before. This may include episodes of series that were not selected by listeners as well as previously played specials.