If you’re not familiar with Gimlet Media, they were famously founded via the StartUp podcast where season one detailed the highs and lows of a couple of seasoned guys experienced in the podcast world to form a podcast company.
As Gimlet Media grew, so did their roster of shows. One such show I enjoyed listening too more than anything else was Mystery Show.
I thought StartUp kind of tapered off a little after the explosive first season, as Gimlet started to become bigger and its show roster grew, something was bound to give.
The premise for Mystery Show was simple. Each episode centred around a “mystery” and the presenter Starlee Kleine would help solve it. The mysteries were brought to Starlee from real people.
In the opinion of many, it was a great show. Nicely paced, well-written and Starlee has a voice made for a podcast.
The show tapped into that part of our brains that found podcasts like Serial and the Netflix hit series Making A Murdered so addictive. Nothing is more alluring to mankind than an unsolved mystery.
Just how popular was Mystery Show?
In 2015, Apple named Mystery Show the Best New Podcast of 2015 in their year-end rewards. In the same list as WTF with Marc Maron and Song Exploder, amongst others.
The Atlantic named episode 3 of season 1 one of the top 50 podcast episodes of 2015.
The Mystery Show Facebook page has 16,316 likes and an incredibly positive sentiment amongst the comments the page receives. For some perspective the Reply All Facebook page only has 12,661 likes. The StartUp Podcast Facebook page has 12,985 likes.
I am well-aware that Facebook likes alone aren’t enough to sustain a show and there are other factors to consider, but it is quite evident that Mystery Show was one of the most popular shows Gimlet Media has (maybe their metrics say otherwise). But the fact Mystery Show has more likes, it has to mean something, right?
The fans that have rallied behind Mystery Show have openly said they would crowdfund the podcast. This comment on the FB page received over a thousand likes about crowdfunding the show.
I really hope that Starlee finds a sponsor or someone else to take the show under their umbrella, because it’s unique and refreshing in the world of podcasts.
I was actually looking for stuff on Aurelia when this post grabbed my attention.
I’m a pretty big fan of Reply All, I think I can say that it’s become my favorite podcast over last year.
That being said, I also really loved the Mystery Show, and I had good hopes of it returning and then I read this sad news… 🙁
Where does it say Gimlet killed The Mystery Show? Or can you tell me why they killed it? It doesn’t seem to make any sense.
If Starlee’s looking for a new home, maybe the Headgum “network” can pick her up or something
HeadGum is pretty new, created by Jake & Amir, those guys from CollegeHumor that started the If I were you podcast now have a podcast network.