A Short History of Serial Productions
They invented the long form podcast with Serial; then news giant NYTimes bought them in 2020…here’s what happened next
The New York Times publicly announced the purchase of Serial Productions and released their debut series Nice White Parents, almost simultaneously, in the early summer of 2020.
It was a big deal in the world of podcasting. But truthfully, the world was also locked down and socially distanced. It was also a time when multiple big-money mergers and acquisitions were happening. So in a way, it was just another day in the world of Podcastlandia.
Significant, but not Earth-shattering.
From their initial launch, the rollout of their new series felt slow. The Improvement Association, about election fraud and cheating in Bladen County, NC, arrived a year later in April of 2021. This was reported and produced by long-time This American Life staffer Zoe Chace. It’s a solid series, but it didn’t feel massively different from many other TAL episodes, except with a longer runway, and a more complex story.
Six months later, they followed up with The Trojan Horse Affair, which arrived in February of 2022. It’s a sprawling series about a mysterious brown envelope that landed on the desk of a city…
