Good morning! Paramount and Trump yet to reach settlement over CBS News lawsuit, Kathy Warden’s Northrop Grumman invests in rocket developer startup, and the top female podcaster in the U.S. thinks you’d like true crime—even if you don’t already listen.
– Listen up. In an average week during the first three months of this year, 6.4 million Americans listened to Crime Junkie. That’s the true crime podcast hosted by Ashley Flowers, who over the past seven years has built an Indiana-based audio empire—and now has ambitions to turn it into a true media empire.
Crime Junkie’s listener stats make it the No. 2 podcast in the U.S.—and make Flowers the nation’s top female podcaster. (Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy is No. 4.) “I’ll get Joe Rogan one day,” Flowers joked when I spoke with her backstage at one of her live shows in Seattle last month. Thousands of fans had driven hours to see Flowers in person, where she told the story of an unsolved 1987 Colorado murder and the wrongful conviction that followed. She has even mobilized her audience to take action, encouraging them to contact the state’s attorney general.
Flowers is the creative force behind her show, but the 36-year-old has also been balancing a second job as CEO of parent company Audiochuck, which has 70 employees and 20 podcasts. “I didn’t come from a media background,” says Flowers, who before launching Crime Junkie did business development for a software company. “I was just scrappy and wore so many hats.” She typically arrives at the office by 4:30 a.m. to accomplish those dual roles. The hard work has paid off with Audiochuck earning $45 million in profit last year, according to Bloomberg (Flowers credits low overhead costs in Indiana for allowing that number), and a valuation of $250 million. Flowers has published two mystery novels (the second, earlier this month) and has her own channel on SiriusXM, too, which also handles advertising for the Audiochuck podcast network.
She’s obsessed with true crime and says she remembers the facts of every case she’s ever worked on—across hundreds of podcast episodes. “It’s just human nature for us to want to make sense of things that don’t make sense,” she says. “Solving puzzles—your brain tries to fit the pieces together.”
Flowers is now bringing on a new CEO, Fortune is the first to report. Matthew Starker arrived from Endeavor Streaming, where he was chief business officer. He joins Audiochuck after a $40 million investment from the Chernin Group in February—and is tasked with bringing to life Flowers’ thesis that the audience for true crime is much bigger than even the 6.4 million who listen to Crime Junkie. Starker says the total addressable market for true crime fans worldwide is 230 million. “If you enjoy someone telling you an amazing story with edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, you’re going to like Crime Junkie,” Starker says.
Audiochuck aims to move into film and television—which prompted Flowers to bring on outside investment to help her navigate new industries. “Taking the assets and the IP that they’ve built out and expanding that into video and television, there’s just so much potential,” Starker says. Some of that will still be true crime—a TV adaptation of Crime Junkie might look something like a modernized Dateline–but it will also pursue scripted content in the mystery and thriller genres. (Under what name—Audiochuck? Crime Junkie? Flowers’ herself?—is still TBD.) “What Blumhouse is for horror, I want Audiochuck to be for mystery and thriller,” Flowers says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Say sorry. As negotiations continue between Paramount Global and President Donald Trump over his lawsuit against CBS News, Paramount has offered $15 million to settle—Trump wants more than $25 million and an apology. Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone is not taking part in negotiations with the Trump team. Wall Street Journal
- Spacecraft startup. Aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman, led by Kathy Warden, invested $50 million in rocket developer Firefly Aerospace. The companies are also looking at Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile shield proposal. Northrop Grumman’s VP and general manager of launch and missile defense systems said, “It’s going to open up the market even more than it is.” Bloomberg
- Gen Z gender gap. As the gender political divide between Gen Z voters around the world grows, young women in South Korea are expected to lead the opposition to the country’s conservative party in the country's upcoming presidential election. Reuters
- Signing on to softball. Major League Baseball (MLB) has made its first major investment in women’s professional sport via a partnership with the Athletes Unlimited Softball League. MLB cited preexisting infrastructure and a “pipeline of athletes” as reasons for choosing to invest in softball over women’s baseball. CBS
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Maria Grazia Chiuri is stepping down as creative director of women’s haute couture, ready-to-wear, and accessories collections at Dior.
AiCure, which has developed an AI-powered patient engagement platform, named Sabina Chadha CEO. She was most recently chief revenue officer at Skedulo.
Litigation services provider First Legal appointed Beth Anne Whalen as chief revenue officer. Most recently, Whalen was managing director, North America at Morae.
Sellers Dorsey, a health care consulting services firm, appointed Jennifer Duke as chief growth officer. Most recently, she was VP of Oracle Health and Life Sciences.
Workiva, an AI-powered platform for financial reporting, appointed Astha Malik to its board of directors. Malik is chief business officer of Braze.
ON MY RADAR
From reckoning to backlash, Black women reflect on the stakes of the moment The 19th
After this retailer revamped its onboarding, revenue surged more than 1,500 percent Inc.
The inner voice vs. the oncologist The Cut
PARTING WORDS
“I want you to ask your husband, your children, and your friends what it was like to be with you for the past 20 years. Then I want you to ask them what they would like to see you be like to be with for the next 20?”
—Lumen Technologies CEO Kate Johnson shares the “very powerful” assignment her coach gave her during her sabbatical
