Murder tale becomes a podcast phenomenon

WHILE the use of podcasts proliferates, few have caused the buzz of Serial.

This viral phenomenon is a spin-off from This American Life, a critically-acclaimed programme available on public radio in the US and on digital radio internationally. Broadcast in weekly episodes, it revisits the true story of the 1999 murder of a high school student in Baltimore and the ex-boyfriend convicted of killing her.

Since it went on air in October, the show has captured the imagination of what is, for a podcast, a huge number of listeners worldwide. It is the most downloaded podcast on iTunes, with most recent figures showing each episode averaging 850,000 downloads. Social media is abuzz with excited discussions from fans eagerly awaiting for their next fix.