a boom in podcasts has come to television –

If you’ve listened to a good podcast last year, chances are the studio is already in talks to adapt its airing.

The trend of podcasts being televised began earlier this year with the launch of shows like Hulu. abandonmentApple TV+ we hitPeacock Against Joe Carroll and NBC things in pam – All of them were prestigious limited series based on podcasts of the same name. In late 2021, viewers saw Peacock’s doctor death And the ones from Apple TV+ the psychiatrist next door.

In some cases, like we hit s doctor deathParticipants on the show were given early access to the podcast to see if and how they would be interested in adapting this story for television.

“I was blown away by the first episode of the podcast,” said Patrick McManus, who adapted it. doctor death For a peacock.

To create the fictional series and inform the conversation between the characters, McManus says he drew on research from Wonder and journalist Laura Bailey to run a podcast of the same name. “[Beil] “They went to the jungle for us,” McManus said. “We deposit and display thousands of pages.”

for that we hitCreators Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevelo also leveraged WeWork’s existing reports and interviews with co-founders Adam and Rebecca Neumann. The team also began its own investigation, which included interviews with dozens of former employees, potential investors and friends, as well as a face-to-face meeting with Jared Leto and Adam Neumann. The we hit The team’s investigation was so thorough that Eisenberg said one of the people on the show was actually questioning how they could literally repeat the conversation when “no one was around.”

Eisenberg says, “It was my favorite compliment we’ve ever received. It was really important for us to get this right and that’s why you spend hours on the phone with someone or read transcripts.”

Some show producers have taken the artistic liberty of broadcasting their adaptations on screen. for that things in pamCreator Jenny Klein says she jumped into the visual medium by creating these snippets, “Pam Visions,” which helped illustrate the protagonist’s lies and absurdities in a way that the podcast failed. “They build over the season and get more and more theatrical as Pam’s lies become more and more complete,” says Klein. “It’s an exceedingly lofty representation of her nature.”

By telling stories based on facts and real people, the people in the entertainment world they’ve talked to THR The possibility of a more three-dimensional representation of the characters in the story and crime was also mentioned, although they would not necessarily rescue anyone or justify their actions.

Georgia Pritchett, adapted the psychiatrist next doorHe says he was a fan of the podcast before joining the project and knew he had some doubts about the relationship between Martin “Mark” Markovitz and his therapist, Dr. Isaac “Ick” Hershkoff, the last of whom was assigned to him. . Licensed in New York in 2021 for violating minimum standards of patient care.

“Many people have told me, ‘Oh, Aiki is bad’ or ‘Idiot March.’ “It made a lot of sense for both men, and I wanted to get it without blaming or judging them,” Pritchett said.

Against Joe Carroll Showman Ethan Frankel says he wanted to avoid turning the show into a “caricature” of Joe Exotic and Carol Baskin, especially since viewers may already be forming opinions about the two after Netflix released their documentary. tiger king At the beginning of the pandemic.

“We were hoping to present them as real people who went through traumatic events and couldn’t make an excuse,” says Frankel, “but we would still give the audience a chance to see who we thought these people were and how they were perceived as human.” .” .”

The story first appeared in a separate June issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.