“Serial,” the hit podcast that has made its weekly schedule part of its mission statement, is moving to an every-other-week schedule, the show said in a surprise announcement Tuesday.
This means the fifth episode of the podcast, which this year is covering the case of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, won’t come out this Thursday morning but rather on Jan. 21.
The show simply needs more time to deal with new information that the first episodes have helped producers uncover, host and executive producer Sarah Koenig said in email to podcast subscribers Tuesday night.
“I know! I know … it’s maybe not what you wanted to hear,” Koenig wrote. “But, there’s a good and exciting reason, which is that we’re adding more material. This story goes in so many directions, and as we’re reporting it we’re getting access to more of the key people close to Bergdahl’s case, and to more information than we initially thought we would.”
She called this development “great” and promised that there would be one more episode than planned, as the series stretches into the spring.
Bergdahl was a new soldier in Afghanistan when he left his base and was captured by the Taliban. In 2014, after five years in captivity, he was exchanged for five prisoners at Guantanamo. After the show began his superior officers ordered that he face a court martial for desertion and endangering troops.
Produced in New York by “This American Life” in cooperation with Chicago’s WBEZ-FM 91.5, “Serial” has access to the only public interviews Bergdahl is known to have done, hours of conversation with a film producer who is reportedly making a movie about the case.
While the show does not seem to be generating the buzz this season that it did in its first, an examination of a teenage murder case in Baltimore, it remains No. 1 on the iTunes podcast charts.
Koenig, in her statement, told listeners, “During in-between weeks, we’ll have new posts and graphics on our website. We’ll keep you updated on all of that via our social media accounts.”
