Two new seasons of Serial under way

HIT US podcast Serial will be returning for two more seasons and both will investigate new stories.

Adnan Syed, the man at the centre of the Serial podcast in 1998.

HIT US podcast Serial will be returning for two more seasons and both will investigate new stories.

Serial host and executive producer Sarah Koenig says season two will debut later this year and season three in 2016.

In a newsletter to fans, Koenig reveals she has already begun work on both seasons, which she hopes will reduce the time between them being released.

“We are hard at work reporting not one, but two distinct new stories. This means we’re planning on a third season of Serial,” Koenig wrote.

Baltimore’s Woodlawn High School group photo, with murdered student Hae Min Lee and Adnan Syed, the man convicted for her murder, in the middle. Photo: Supplied.

Hae Min Lee, the murdered ex-girlfriend of Adnan Syed. Her murder investigation was unofficially re-opened by Serial producer Sarah Koenig on October 3, 2014. Picture: Supplied.

“As it stands, we intend to launch Season Two this fall (Australian spring) and Season Three next spring (Australian autumn).” Koenig could not give away any clues about the stories yet but she said they will be “very different” from the award-winning 12-episode first season.

“But no less interesting to us,” she wrote.

Through interviews and analysis, Koenig in the first season cast the microscope over the 1999 murder of Baltimore teenager Hae Min Lee.

Her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was charged for the crime and given life in prison, but since the podcast was aired his case is being revisited by an appeals court.