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'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It was the defining podcast. It isn't that it was hyper monetized or incredibly financially successful; sim

'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It was the defining podcast. It isn't that it was hyper monetized or incredibly financially successful; simply it showed that the audience was there. It has over 340 million listens as of 2018. With this eviction of conviction, I suspect that number will be over a billion. It is fitting that it has come full circle and fulfilled the ultimate purpose of investigative journalism: to shine a light on a small part of the world that otherwise would be ignored... and maybe right a wrong.

jbpnoy6fifty 4y ago
If interested, there was an HBO documentary that covered his case after Serial. “The Case Against Adnan Syed 2019 ‧ Documentary ‧ 1 season” on HBO max
geuis 4y ago
> 'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts Sorry, but this statement is objectively wrong. Podcasts have existed for close to 20 years in the way we understand them today. Serial may have helped to popularize podcasts, but in no way was original.
- blamazon 4y ago
  I think that commenter may have not been that literal and meant something more along the lines of "made podcasts more mainstream in an exponential manner." I know plenty of people in my life who weren't podcast people at that time but were constantly talking about it or walking around saying "mail... keemp?" as a joke. (A reference to Serial)
- LeonB 4y ago
  They’re using hyperbole as a device. It’s not meant to be “literally” true.
- blobbers 4y ago
  Indeed you’re very right! Not the original, but Serial contained all the elements that made a podcast mainstream and proved it out as a real business. Prior to it they were indie.
- brewdad 4y ago
  Serial is the first podcast I can recall being referenced in mainstream network TV pop culture. SNL did skits about it. It was mentioned in dialog on other shpws. BoJack's girlfriend used it as her ringtone. It was everywhere in a way no other podcast had been previously.
- splistud 4y ago
hardtke 4y ago
Maybe Serial launched the modern commerically produced crime podcast format, but I'd give a shout out to The History of Rome by Mike Duncan as the "defining podcast." It started quite a bit earlier (2007) and proved that there is a big audience (65 million downloads) for obscure topics covered in depth. Serial spun out of This American Life, so it had some audience to begin with, but THOR is truly "let me put this out there and see if anyone listens." It's also interesting to see how apologetic Mike Duncan was when he introduced monetization through direct to consumer ads, and this is now the standard monetization model.
- ekanes 4y ago
  An absolute gem. I’ve listened all the way through twice.
- jeffdn 4y ago
  Have you listened to Revolutions, his more recent podcast? Also great — and there are ten seasons, each about a different revolution, in-depth.
thomasahle 4y ago
Back in 2006 I wrote an "Internet Radio Recording" app: https://sourceforge.net/projects/radiorec/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/radiorec/ based on the interface of DVRs on TVs at the time. It's interesting that people thought to put live streamed radio online before just dumping the mp3s.
willcipriano 4y ago
Karl Pilkington was eating a knob at night a decade prior.
- jphoward 4y ago
  I could eat a knob at night.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    The Ricky Gervais Podcast, on the original iPod. The kids will never know how magical that was. Monkey news, Karl's inventions, "None of this now needed, baby dead".
- typon 4y ago
  Still the funniest "3 people just having a chat and being funny" podcast in existence. Cumtown doesn't hold a candle to it imo
karaterobot 4y ago
Serial definitely was an inflection point in the history of podcasts.
listless 4y ago
Serial is the original true crime podcast, and IMO, nobody since has done it as well as they did. And holy shit. What an incredible piece of news. I think, though, that if the state vacates a conviction, then they lose the right to prosecute you again. Being let out and then having to relive your nightmare trial with the possibility of going back? That’s sadistic by any definition.
- saimiam 4y ago
  They haven't set aside the conviction - just released Adnan Syed from prison until the competent authority can decide whether they want to retry him or look elsewhere for the killers. Basically, the equivalent of declaring a mistrial after the prisoner has been convicted and sent to prison. Adnan is out of prison but under GPS monitoring for now.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  In the UK there is a limited Double Jeopardy. If they conclude that there's significant new evidence, they can re-try you for certain serious crimes, including murder, rape and armed robbery with their new evidence. There is an extraordinary case where somebody was tried, convicted, had the conviction quashed (for procedural reasons) then was tried again and convicted again twenty years later.
bearcobra 4y ago
This assertion has always been strange to me. This American Life was releasing their episodes as podcasts for something like 7 years before they decided to do Serial. Shows like Adam Corolla, WTF with Marc Maron, the BS Report, Joe Rogan Experience, etc were all very successful before Serial. Major media companies like NPR, CBC, BBC were releasing podcasts and dedicated podcast companies like TWiT.tv had existed for years. I think you can kind of credit Serial for popularizing true crime podcasts but it gets way too much credit for the success for the medium.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  I listened to at least one proto-podcast back in the pre-iPod era of the late 90s: Pointless Audio with Kevin Pereira. It's still available in some form: https://youtu.be/XXqxUAzt6u4 https://youtu.be/XXqxUAzt6u4
- fasthands9 4y ago
  In fairness I think Bill Simmons, Joe Rogan, Marc Maron and Adam Carolla have had their praise for moving podcasts along. Same with This American Life. Serial was different, though in that it was a multi episode look at something. This American life had segments and still had to be designed with the radio listener in mind - who was probably only in the car for 30 min. I don't think Serial is that uniquely good - but it was different. We just are kinda dumb for having all of "podcasts" under one term instead of a bunch of genre terms.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
    You could also just call them “radio shows”. It’s a weird thing that the company that made iPods for a few years defined that term and we have gone with it since. As for the earlier part of your comment - it’s there in the name, “serial”. That was the experiment. But there have been serialized radio shows back when radio was the leading medium. We just don’t remember that time. What I think is key here is that these people had formal experience and mentorship in doing radio. Lots of it. To them it was just applying that expertise to something we call something different due to shifts in distribution tech.
pengaru 4y ago
> 'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It feels like we were listening to This American Life in podcast form in the car for at least five years before Serial even existed. And Serial was being marketed on TAL during what I'd describe as TAL's slow decline from popularity, with Ira personally shilling for Serial and teasing the first entire episode on TAL, IIRC. If either of these were responsible for launching the modern podcast era, I'd point at TAL, not Serial.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  The difference is that TAL is a radio show that was also distributed as podcast. Serial was only a podcast.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    Sure, except I never listened to TAL on the radio. We would download a bunch of the episodes into someone's mp3 player (later a phone) and listen to them in the car through a tape deck headphone adapter. That's the era I lived through, the transition to mp3s and ipods becoming commonplace, and TLA was right there with us. They are called podcasts after all, this is pre-streaming parlance. I don't think it's fair to be discredit TAL's role in the shift to podcasting just because they were a radio show first. Serial basically arrived when everyone was streaming everything, that's pretty late in terms of podcasts. Serial didn't even exist in the era of iPods and Zens...
bitwize 4y ago
Podcasts have been a thing since the mid-2000s or so. The name comes from the fact that you were supposed to download them and listen to them on your iPod. It may be a popular, influential podcast that established norms for the true-crime podcast format, but calling it the podcast that launched all podcasts is like calling JavaScript the language that launched all languages.
- blobbers 4y ago
  C/C++ were the languages that launched all languages. Serial is like C. It’s not the first language, but it’s the most important modern language.

jbpnoy6fifty 4y ago

If interested, there was an HBO documentary that covered his case after Serial. “The Case Against Adnan Syed 2019 ‧ Documentary ‧ 1 season” on HBO max

geuis 4y ago

> 'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts Sorry, but this statement is objectively wrong. Podcasts have existed for close to 20 years in the way we understand them today. Serial may have helped to popularize podcasts, but in no way was original.

blamazon 4y ago
I think that commenter may have not been that literal and meant something more along the lines of "made podcasts more mainstream in an exponential manner." I know plenty of people in my life who weren't podcast people at that time but were constantly talking about it or walking around saying "mail... keemp?" as a joke. (A reference to Serial)
LeonB 4y ago
They’re using hyperbole as a device. It’s not meant to be “literally” true.
blobbers 4y ago
Indeed you’re very right! Not the original, but Serial contained all the elements that made a podcast mainstream and proved it out as a real business. Prior to it they were indie.
brewdad 4y ago
Serial is the first podcast I can recall being referenced in mainstream network TV pop culture. SNL did skits about it. It was mentioned in dialog on other shpws. BoJack's girlfriend used it as her ringtone. It was everywhere in a way no other podcast had been previously.
splistud 4y ago

hardtke 4y ago

Maybe Serial launched the modern commerically produced crime podcast format, but I'd give a shout out to The History of Rome by Mike Duncan as the "defining podcast." It started quite a bit earlier (2007) and proved that there is a big audience (65 million downloads) for obscure topics covered in depth. Serial spun out of This American Life, so it had some audience to begin with, but THOR is truly "let me put this out there and see if anyone listens." It's also interesting to see how apologetic Mike Duncan was when he introduced monetization through direct to consumer ads, and this is now the standard monetization model.

ekanes 4y ago
An absolute gem. I’ve listened all the way through twice.
jeffdn 4y ago
Have you listened to Revolutions, his more recent podcast? Also great — and there are ten seasons, each about a different revolution, in-depth.

thomasahle 4y ago

Back in 2006 I wrote an "Internet Radio Recording" app: https://sourceforge.net/projects/radiorec/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/radiorec/ based on the interface of DVRs on TVs at the time. It's interesting that people thought to put live streamed radio online before just dumping the mp3s.

willcipriano 4y ago

Karl Pilkington was eating a knob at night a decade prior.

jphoward 4y ago
I could eat a knob at night.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  The Ricky Gervais Podcast, on the original iPod. The kids will never know how magical that was. Monkey news, Karl's inventions, "None of this now needed, baby dead".
typon 4y ago
Still the funniest "3 people just having a chat and being funny" podcast in existence. Cumtown doesn't hold a candle to it imo

karaterobot 4y ago

Serial definitely was an inflection point in the history of podcasts.

listless 4y ago

Serial is the original true crime podcast, and IMO, nobody since has done it as well as they did. And holy shit. What an incredible piece of news. I think, though, that if the state vacates a conviction, then they lose the right to prosecute you again. Being let out and then having to relive your nightmare trial with the possibility of going back? That’s sadistic by any definition.

saimiam 4y ago
They haven't set aside the conviction - just released Adnan Syed from prison until the competent authority can decide whether they want to retry him or look elsewhere for the killers. Basically, the equivalent of declaring a mistrial after the prisoner has been convicted and sent to prison. Adnan is out of prison but under GPS monitoring for now.
tialaramex 4y ago
In the UK there is a limited Double Jeopardy. If they conclude that there's significant new evidence, they can re-try you for certain serious crimes, including murder, rape and armed robbery with their new evidence. There is an extraordinary case where somebody was tried, convicted, had the conviction quashed (for procedural reasons) then was tried again and convicted again twenty years later.

bearcobra 4y ago

This assertion has always been strange to me. This American Life was releasing their episodes as podcasts for something like 7 years before they decided to do Serial. Shows like Adam Corolla, WTF with Marc Maron, the BS Report, Joe Rogan Experience, etc were all very successful before Serial. Major media companies like NPR, CBC, BBC were releasing podcasts and dedicated podcast companies like TWiT.tv had existed for years. I think you can kind of credit Serial for popularizing true crime podcasts but it gets way too much credit for the success for the medium.

QuercusMax 4y ago
I listened to at least one proto-podcast back in the pre-iPod era of the late 90s: Pointless Audio with Kevin Pereira. It's still available in some form: https://youtu.be/XXqxUAzt6u4 https://youtu.be/XXqxUAzt6u4
fasthands9 4y ago
In fairness I think Bill Simmons, Joe Rogan, Marc Maron and Adam Carolla have had their praise for moving podcasts along. Same with This American Life. Serial was different, though in that it was a multi episode look at something. This American life had segments and still had to be designed with the radio listener in mind - who was probably only in the car for 30 min. I don't think Serial is that uniquely good - but it was different. We just are kinda dumb for having all of "podcasts" under one term instead of a bunch of genre terms.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
  You could also just call them “radio shows”. It’s a weird thing that the company that made iPods for a few years defined that term and we have gone with it since. As for the earlier part of your comment - it’s there in the name, “serial”. That was the experiment. But there have been serialized radio shows back when radio was the leading medium. We just don’t remember that time. What I think is key here is that these people had formal experience and mentorship in doing radio. Lots of it. To them it was just applying that expertise to something we call something different due to shifts in distribution tech.

pengaru 4y ago

> 'Serial' was the podcast that launched all podcasts. It feels like we were listening to This American Life in podcast form in the car for at least five years before Serial even existed. And Serial was being marketed on TAL during what I'd describe as TAL's slow decline from popularity, with Ira personally shilling for Serial and teasing the first entire episode on TAL, IIRC. If either of these were responsible for launching the modern podcast era, I'd point at TAL, not Serial.

BurningFrog 4y ago
The difference is that TAL is a radio show that was also distributed as podcast. Serial was only a podcast.
- pengaru 4y ago
  Sure, except I never listened to TAL on the radio. We would download a bunch of the episodes into someone's mp3 player (later a phone) and listen to them in the car through a tape deck headphone adapter. That's the era I lived through, the transition to mp3s and ipods becoming commonplace, and TLA was right there with us. They are called podcasts after all, this is pre-streaming parlance. I don't think it's fair to be discredit TAL's role in the shift to podcasting just because they were a radio show first. Serial basically arrived when everyone was streaming everything, that's pretty late in terms of podcasts. Serial didn't even exist in the era of iPods and Zens...

bitwize 4y ago

Podcasts have been a thing since the mid-2000s or so. The name comes from the fact that you were supposed to download them and listen to them on your iPod. It may be a popular, influential podcast that established norms for the true-crime podcast format, but calling it the podcast that launched all podcasts is like calling JavaScript the language that launched all languages.

blobbers 4y ago
C/C++ were the languages that launched all languages. Serial is like C. It’s not the first language, but it’s the most important modern language.