Serial's Sarah Koenig Launches 'METRO' Podcast With The New York Times Metro Desk

Sarah Koenig, the host and co-creator of "Serial," has launched a new podcast with The New York Times. "METRO with Sarah Koenig," a narrative show about New York City made by Serial Productions with the Times' Metro desk, released its first two episodes on Thursday, Oct. 22. New episodes are scheduled every other Thursday.

In its announcement, The New York Times Company said the show brings listeners stories about New York City and "its most fascinating raw material: New Yorkers." The company said the podcast is available "wherever you get your podcasts."

What the Show Covers

According to the announcement, each installment draws on the city for "investigations, personal stories, essays and interviews that take the bigness of New York and make it human-scale and relevant, no matter where you live." Episodes will feature stories reported by Koenig, the Serial Productions team and the Metro desk, which the company said includes reporters covering City Hall, transportation, housing and more.

The first two episodes are listed on the show's Apple Podcasts page, which also shows a one-minute trailer posted on Oct. 16. Episode 1, "Nice to Meet You," runs 17 minutes. Its description says Koenig goes on a whirlwind tour of the city to find out what New Yorkers are worrying about, adding: "Crime? Sure. The new mayor? Yes. Their weak, little handshakes? All the time."

Episode 2, "Karat and Schtick," runs 40 minutes. According to its description, it follows TraxNYC, a store in New York's diamond district that doubled its business after a video showed the store's owner in a brawl with a rival jeweler. The episode description says Koenig sets out to learn "how much is real and how much is for show?"

In a statement included in the announcement, Koenig said: "This show has been almost too easy to produce, because — who knew? — New Yorkers are the best talkers and storytellers. After spending more than a decade working on investigative, multi-episode series, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to just run out the door and find a great story. I'm having an unseemly amount of fun."

The Team Behind METRO

The show is executive produced by Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial Productions and co-creator of "Serial," according to the company. Koenig is the executive producer of Serial Productions. The announcement notes that she worked as a print reporter for a decade before joining the staff of "This American Life" in 2004.

TheWrap reported that the new show marks "a bit of a return to her roots" for Koenig, given her background in print journalism. The outlet noted that there have been four seasons of "Serial" since its October 2014 debut.

The New York Times Company said Serial Productions, the maker of "Serial" and "S-Town," has recorded more than 743 million total downloads. Previous seasons of "Serial" investigated a murder case, told the story of the court-martial of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, spent a year inside Cleveland's criminal courts and went to the Guantánamo detention camp, the company said.

Six Years Inside The Times

Serial Productions became part of The New York Times Company in July 2020. Since then, the two have released shows including "Nice White Parents," "The Improvement Association," "The Trojan Horse Affair," "We Were Three," "The Coldest Case in Laramie," "The Retrievals," "The Kids of Rutherford County," "The Good Whale," "The Preventionist" and "The Idiot," according to the company. Its most recent release, "The Last 12 Weeks," is a five-part series produced with The Marshall Project.

The announcement also pointed to the record of the Metro desk, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news for its coverage of the prostitution scandal that led to the resignation of then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York. Metro reporter Brian M. Rosenthal won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for articles on how the city's taxi industry trapped thousands of drivers in predatory loans, and Jan Ransom won a George Polk Award in 2025 for her investigation into inmate mistreatment in New York prisons.

The launch announcement was also distributed through the podcast trade publication Podnews. The Apple Podcasts listing credits the show to Serial Productions and The New York Times and marks it as explicit.