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 pod

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.