Joe Budden, the American podcaster best known for The Joe Budden Podcast, is set to make his first formal venture into true‑crime storytelling with a new weekly video podcast titled Crime in America, which will debut on 11 August across major podcast platforms.
Partners and format
The series is produced by Budden’s new company Prime Crime Productions, formed with his business partner Ian Schwartzman, and brings together three distinct media players: Wolf Entertainment, the production company behind television franchises such as Law & Order and the One Chicago dramas; and Advance Local and its Headline Studio, a network of regional newsrooms and a studio arm.
Described by its backers as a weekly video podcast, Crime in America will concentrate on cases that are developing or beginning to break on a national level. The format is intended to surface local stories early, track developments week‑to‑week and revisit matters as they evolve, pairing Budden’s interest in true crime with the editorial resources of Advance Local’s journalists and the storytelling expertise of Wolf Entertainment.
Creative control and business model
Budden and Schwartzman opted to self‑finance and build the project rather than pursue a conventional platform deal. According to the announcement, that independence was deliberate and central to the pair’s strategy for the series.
“We made the deliberate decision to finance and build the series ourselves rather than take it to a traditional buyer or platform, and that is something we are incredibly proud of,”
Wolf Entertainment’s executive vice‑president of digital, Elliot Wolf, framed the collaboration as a way to elevate reporting from local newsrooms, arguing that those journalists are often the first to uncover the country’s most consequential true‑crime stories and deserve a national stage.
“Local journalists have always been the first to break the country’s most moving true crime stories, and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with Joe and Headline to give them a national platform,”
What audiences should expect
The series will pair Budden with Advance Local reporters to explore what happened in each case, why it matters and where the story may go next. Each episode is intended to follow developments over time rather than present closed, retrospective accounts; producers say the format allows the show to return to stories as new information emerges.
- Title: Crime in America
- Host/Producer: Joe Budden; Prime Crime Productions (Budden & Ian Schwartzman)
- Partners: Wolf Entertainment; Advance Local / Headline Studio
- Format: Weekly video podcast
- Launch date: 11 August
The collaboration brings together podcasting energy, local reporting resources and established television production muscle. For audiences, that means the show is pitched to be both immediate — able to follow fast‑moving stories — and journalistically anchored, using the reporting capacities of Advance Local’s newsroom network.
Context and implications
The move highlights two ongoing trends in audio‑visual journalism and entertainment: established podcast hosts branching into adjacent formats, and legacy and local newsrooms seeking new distribution routes through partnerships with commercial producers. By self‑funding, Budden retains creative control and the potential to shape distribution independently, a route other creators have pursued to avoid the constraints of exclusive platform deals.
How the series performs will be watched closely by both the podcast industry and newsrooms, particularly as it foregrounds collaborations that expand local journalism’s visibility beyond regional audiences. The combination of a recognisable personality, a respected television producer and a newsroom network creates a high‑profile test case for similar future ventures.
Crime in America will be available across major podcast platforms from 11 August; further details about episode topics and contributors will be released by the producers ahead of the premiere.
