Serial podcast confirmed for second season after donations pour in

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/nov/26/serial-season-two-podcast-confirmed

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Fans of wildly popular podcast Serial have something extra to be grateful for this Thanksgiving: public radio’s This American Life spin-off has been confirmed for a second season.

Last week, the podcast, which reinvestigates a Baltimore-area murder, asked listeners for donations to fund its second season. The podcast’s staff announced that it had received enough donations and sponsorships to fund a second season, in a note published on its website on Wednesday. The show’s debut season was largely funded by This American Life, which produces the show.

The Serial staff thanked fans and sponsors for their donations, and promised to get to work on the second season as soon as the first one wraps up. They said they don’t know yet what the next story will be, nor do they know when the new season will air.

The podcast, described as an experiment in audio storytelling, is a real-life murder mystery led by reporter Sarah Koenig as she investigates the 1999 murder of a Baltimore area teen.

High school student Hae Min Lee disappeared in early 1999, and after her body was found weeks later, her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was arrested and convicted of strangling Lee to death. Syed, who maintains his innocence, has served nearly 15 years of his life-plus-30-year sentence.

The episodes, released weekly on Thursday mornings, explore a new chapter of the story as Koenig works to uncover the truth about Lee’s murder. The series has no end date, and the reporter has said in the past that she doesn’t know where the story will end.

The podcast averages over 1.5 million listeners an episode, and has cemented its place in podcast history as one of the fastest-downloaded programs ever.

Serial is available to stream or download from its own website, as well as through other podcasting apps and aggregators, including iTunes.