Teacher’s Pet podcast clocks 500,000 downloads and still going strong

The Australian’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pet has amassed more than half a million downloads.

The Teacher’s Pet series from The Australian

The Australian’s investigative podcast series The Teacher’s Pethas amassed more than half a million downloads in one of the most successful launches of its kind.

Whooshkaa founder and CEO Rob Loewenthal yesterday said for a podcast to reach that audience from a “standing start” was unprecedented.

“There are podcasters in Australia who have been building up an audience for over 10 years and they are delivering per episode big numbers like this. Every time they drop an episode they do really well,” he said. “But we’ve been in this game for three years now and we’ve never seen a podcast achieve this type of success so quickly, especially considering this content genre.”

The podcast, by national chief correspondent Hedley Thomas and producer Slade Gibson, is examining the 1982 disappearance and suspected murder of Lyn Dawson from Sydney’s northern beaches.

It was No. 1 on the Australian iTunes podcast charts yesterday, holding the top spot for much of the time since its launch four weeks ago.

Total listens were at more than 500,000 before the release of the latest instalment, Episode 5: A Lovely Drink, out today.