2025 End-of-Year Podcast Review for “Missing in the Carolinas
This past May I celebrated five years of Missing in the Carolinas! It’s hard to believe that my pandemic podcast project continues to grow and make strides. The show has helped me grow a platform in the true crime space and possibly give me an exciting opportunity in the new year. I’ll keep you posted if it develops further. Last year I shared that a suspense/thriller book I’ve written had garnered interest from a few literary agents. While that was exciting, over a year later I still don’t have an offer of representation. The book is currently under consideration with a small publishing house, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I do think the genre of book would appeal to the listeners of this podcast, so I’m not giving up on it just yet. I may hire a book doctor to help me with developmental edits and I have and continue submitting it.
Now let’s talk podcast stats. Analyzing download numbers has always been a little difficult because every podcast platform presents them in a different way. I do know that listeners consumer the podcast mostly on Spotify and not as much on Apple Podcasts, which are my two main platforms. Spotify is our main podcast host. I switched over from SoundCloud earlier this year and it has been easier to analyze stats this way.
Missing in the Carolinas released 42 new episodes this year.
We’ll talk about Spotify stats first. The show has 8,803 followers on the platform, a nine percent increase from last year. Spotify listeners spent 916,000 minutes consuming the show this past year, equivalent to 636 days of listening. Ep. 146, The Unsolved Murder of Brenda Holland, Part 2, received the most comments on the platform.
Missing in the Carolinas has been streamed more than 665,000 times across all platforms. Each episode receives more than 1,000 downloads within the first few weeks of publication.
The top countries listening to the show on Spotify are:
- United States
- Canada
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
60 percent of Spotify listeners binge two or more episodes in one day.
People who listen to Missing in the Carolinas also listen to Dateline NBC, 48 Hours, Crime Junkie, Murder in America, and The Vanished.
40.4 percent of listeners are 45 and older.
24.6 percent are 35-44
10.6 percent are 28-34
77.2 percent of listeners are female, 18.2 percent are male, and 3.6 percent are not specified.
Top Artists for listeners of this podcast are
- Taylor Swift
- Morgan Wallen
- Kendrick Lamar
- Zach Bryan
- Teddy Swims
Their Top Audiobook Listens are:
- The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers and Alex Kiester
- The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
- The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
- Girl, Alone, An Ella Dark FBI Suspense Thriller by Blake Pierce
- His Other Wife, A Stella Fall Psychological Suspense Thriller by Ava Strong
The average podcast rating is 4.4 stars.
Here are the top five episodes downloaded from 2025 on Spotify.
Ep. 154-Five Crimes from the North Carolina Mountains
Ep. 145-The Unsolved Murder of Brenda Holland in the OBX, Part 1
Ep. 128-Four North Carolina Serial Killers
Ep. 134-Missing and Murdered While on Vacation
Let’s talk stats from Apple now. Followers are 2,500 (up three percent from last year). The average podcast rating is 4.7 stars of 146 ratings.
The top cities for the podcast are:
- Charlotte
- Atlanta
- Washington, D.C.
- Raleigh
- New York City
The top countries listening to the podcast through Apple are:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Australia
The Apple Podcast Top Episodes were a little different from the Spotify streams. For Apple, they were:
Ep. 159-The Murder of Michelle Young in Raleigh
Ep. 160-Todd Kohlhepp’s Crimes in South Carolina
Ep. 164-The Abduction and Murder of Peg Cuttino in South Carolina
Ep. 158-The Murder of Dr. Joe Smith in Lancaster, S.C.
Whether you are a new listener or have been around from the beginning, I appreciate every comment, listen, share, and words of encouragement! I can’t wait to see what 2026 brings for the podcast.