User:Ejones0/Crime podcasts

Podcasts
Podcasts with a true crime theme are a recent trend. The 2014 true crime podcast Serial broke podcasting records when it achieved 5 million downloads on iTunes, quicker than any previous podcast. As of September 2018, it has been downloaded more than 340 million times. It has been followed by other true crime podcasts such as Dirty John, My Favorite Murder, Up and Vanished, Parcast series such as Cults, Female Criminals and Mind's Eye, Someone Knows Something, and many more.

Podcasts have now expanded to more sites such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and many more. They exist to provide others an easy way to learn about true crime murders and mysteries. Spotify has an expanding number of true crime podcasts with Rotten Mango, Conviction American Panic, Bed of Lies, Catch & Kill among many more. This genre has been on the rise as psychologist, Amanda Vicary, said her report found “women were most drawn to true crime stories that gave them tips for spotting danger and staying alive”. The True Crime category in Apple Podcasts appeared for the first time mid-2019, and until then the podcasts that would be moved into the section had existed across many other categories, such as History, News & Politics, and even Comedy.

It's been speculated that fear could play a role in the popularity of true crime podcasts. These podcasts often recount horrific crimes, which triggers the fear response and the release of adrenaline in the body. Due to the possibility of bingeing podcasts, adrenaline rushes can be experienced in quick bursts. Another explanation for the popularity of true crime podcasts is due to the serialized nature of crime, in which events happen one after another. Podcasts that explore a crime episodically can utilize this aspect in their storytelling. Another strength of these podcasts is use of typical sensationalist techniques, such as inclusion of direct dialogue and focus on victims and their families. Podcasts can use music or other sound cues to maximize the intended impact or shock value of a fact, as seen in Serial.

US Trends 2019-current
In the U.S. women are predominantly the consumers of digital true crime podcasts, in 2019 making up around 73% of the content audience. The 2019 Edison Research Report found that at the time of data collection, an estimated 90 million of the U.S. population older than 12 had listened to a podcast in the last month, and of those polled, around 28% were interested in true crime as a topic to listen to in a podcast.

In 2020, true crime podcasts held many of the U.S. top 50 spots for popularity by most listens, with Crime Junkie at #3, My Favorite Murder at #5, and others scattered amongst the top 50, such as; Serial at #13, Dateline NBC at #22, and Criminal at #30. In that year, true crime ranked third overall for genres by listen behind both comedy and news. From November 2019 through May 2022, true crime podcast listening has increased the most of the top three genres by percentage gain in listeners, with a 66% gain (from ~12.9m to ~21.5m) in current listeners, versus the 44% and 37% gain in listeners by comedy and news respectively.

On Apple Podcasts, True Crime podcasts make up just less than half a percent of the total number of podcasts on the platform. On a collated list of 432 podcasts from the most-visited results of a search for 'Top Podcasts of 2021', true crime podcasts made up more than 20% of the podcasts constituting the lists.

Australia Trends 2019-current
In 2017, as many as 30% of podcast listeners had listened to true crime podcasts, and in 2019, this had increased to up to 44%.