Podcasting is still pretty hot these days, especially as the TV industry is concerned, with the success of Homecoming on Amazon more than making up for the failure of Zach Braff’s similarly podcast-inspired Alex, Inc.—which ABC canceled earlier this year. According to Deadline, NBC is developing another TV show based on a podcast, with the network picking up the rights to Paul Bae and Terry Miles’ fictional radio documentary The Black Tapes. The adaptation is coming from Emerald City’s Matthew Arnold, so that’s not not a great sign, but Bae and Miles will be joining him as writers and executive producers.
The original show centered on Alex Reagan, the host of a radio documentary series in which she investigates the unsolved cases of skeptic paranormal investigator Richard Strand. Deadline says the podcast “has been compared to Serial,” which is a very hands-off way of saying that some elements of The Black Tapes are so distractingly similar to Serial that you might actually enjoy the spooky show more if you’ve never even heard of the the real show. But hey, the Serial TV show hasn’t happened yet, so any structural similarities will be irrelevant if The Black Tapes can get its adaptation on the air first.