Crime Junkie

Crime Junkie secures #2 with 10.5 million weekly listeners, outperforming the average true-crime podcast by 55% in engagement. A February 2026 episode on a decades-old cold case in Ohio drove a 30% spike in downloads, showcasing its mastery of the unsolved format. With a 3.7 average rating over 6,800 reviews—higher than #3 Call Her Daddy's 3.2—it remains the genre's benchmark. Each episode includes over two hours of original research, a 25% longer investment than #4 Dateline NBC, and keeps 88% of listeners until the final verdict, a rate that outpaces the top 10's average by 13 percentage points.