On February 9, 2015, Scott Pelley of CBS News reported Serial 's season 1 episodes had been downloaded more than 68 million times. New York Magazine reported that Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directors of The Lego Movie and the film 21 Jump Street, would be producing a television program about the podcast that will take a 'behind-the-scenes approach that details how Koenig went from virtual anonymity to creating one of 2014's biggest cultural phenomenons'. But trying to do it as a serial, this is as old as Dickens.' Maybe in podcast form it is, and trying to do it as a documentary story is really, really hard. All these big, big things.' She also has noted, 'this is not an original idea.

Koenig has said that Serial is 'about the basics: love and death and justice and truth. As of September 2018, episodes of seasons 1 and 2 have been downloaded over 340 million times, establishing an ongoing podcast world record. Serial won a Peabody Award in April 2015 for its innovative telling of a long-form nonfiction story. Serial ranked number one on iTunes even before its debut and remained there for several weeks. Season 3, which debuted in September 2018, explores cases within the Justice Center Complex in the Cleveland area. Season 2 focused on Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, an American Army soldier who was held for five years by the Taliban, and then charged with desertion. Season 1 investigated the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee (Hangul: 이해민), an 18-year-old student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County.

The series was co-created and is co-produced by Koenig and Julie Snyder and developed by This American Life as of July 2020, it is owned by The New York Times. Serial is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig, narrating a nonfiction story over multiple episodes.

When will the new serial podcast start