Independent production companies rather than established publishers dominate the UK podcast rankings when it comes to the popular true crime category.
Crime is a staple of traditional journalism. And since 2014 hit series Serial, podcasts have turned out to be an excellent format for longer crime investigations and reporting.
Casefile Presents podcast Troubled Waters has topped the Apple true crime charts in the UK. It investigates the mystery of a young woman’s suspicious death in 2011.
Wondery‘s Redhanded leads the way on Spotify. The weekly podcast started as hobby for its two hosts Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala and now claims four million listens per month.
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Wondery has two other podcasts that feature on either top ten list, while Casefile Presents has one more.
There are no official charts for UK podcasts, with publishers rarely revealing their own numbers. The Apple and Spotify charts reveal a snapshot of which shows are doing best on each platform.
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Neither Wondery nor Casefile Presents were willing to share listener figures with Press Gazette, but Wondery says it is seeing strong growth in listener numbers and commercial revenue.
Cocaine Inc., which was produced by The Times and Sunday Times in collaboration with News Corp Australia, claims to have clocked over 750,000 downloads in the first two months since release, with every expectation that they will hit the one million mark.
The Daily Mail team claims their podcasts have surpassed 30 million downloads in total, with their biggest hit The Trial of Lucy Letby previously topping true crime charts.
While Youtube views can be a good gauge of the reach of a podcast, sometimes accounting for over half of a podcast's total views, few true crime podcasts have taken off on the platform.
The notable exception is Rotten Mango, produced by Stephanie Soo with Ramble, which averaged more than one million views per episode on YouTube over the previous month.
Nonetheless, true crime podcasts are understood to be booming across the other platforms on which they are available.
This growth mirrors that seen in the rest of the podcast industry. Press Gazette recently revealed how listener numbers boomed for political podcasts during the course of the general election, while sports podcasts have also seen encouraging growth.
Chris Baughen, head of UK podcast content at Wondery, said that "podcasts are the perfect medium to build intimacy with an audience", precisely because this attention is well-suited to discussing highly personal subjects.
He added that "as a result of this bond, podcast listeners often develop a deep loyalty for their favourite shows and hosts, anticipating each new episode with excitement".
Madeleine Baran, who hosts The New Yorker's In the Dark, also said that "audio reporting has always been a powerful way to connect with people. There's something compelling about the experience of listening to an injustice be revealed."
Will Roe, podcast producer for The Times and Sunday Times, said that "when you're doing a digital piece, you're concentrated to a word count; that's the name of the game. Whereas with podcasting, episodes can be anywhere between 25 and 40 minutes, so you can add a lot more in."
According to Roe, the case of Andrew Malkinson, whose 2004 rape conviction was later overturned due to the discovery of new DNA on the scene, perfectly demonstrates the strength of podcasting.
He said of the discovery of the DNA: "For the newspaper, you write that up that week, and it goes out that Sunday. For a podcast audience, because they're not always newspaper readers - podcast listeners tend to be younger - I hold that drop, or twist, until episode four. So you can hold stuff back.
"When making a series, what you're looking for is enough beats of the story, with enough twists and turns, to last you four, to six, to eight episodes."
Spend on podcast advertising up 23% year-on-year
The growth in the podcast industry has led to a growth in spending on podcast advertising. The IAB digital media industry update reported a 23% increase in advertising spending on podcasts compared to 11% for the industry generally.
Though some publishers are concerned that the sensitivity of many true crime topics can put advertisers off, advertising is still a major source of revenue for true crime podcasts.
Declan Moore, head of international at Wondery, told Press Gazette that Wondery was also seeing revenue growth from exclusive subscription offerings.
Moore also stressed the important role of indirect revenue streams, such as live events, merchandise and publishing adaptations.
The Times and Sunday Times told Press Gazette that they hoped Cocaine Inc. would expose their journalism to a wider, more global, female-skewed audience.
Roe told Press Gazette that "the UK market for podcasts is quite small, so there's a lot of growth still to tap into".
He added: "If you can break into the US market, if your stories can translate over there - which I think all stories can do - then that's also a real avenue for growth."
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