The End’s Look Back on 2023 Completed Audio Fiction

Compiled by

Evo Terra

- Published on

January 5, 2024

I’m a bit of a data nerd, so I was excited by the opportunity to pull together some stats from last year in a recap form. Yes, I realize most look-back articles were posted near the end of 2023, but I’ve always found that rather dumb, as I prefer to wait until the calendar has turned the final page. (Remember when we only had paper calendars? Ah, the old old days.)

This is our first Annual Report. Or State of The End. Or some other clever name I’m sure I’ll come up with later. For now, let’s get into some of 2023’s interesting audio fiction data, at least as we have it in our ever-growing fiction podcast—and more—directory.

402 Audio Fiction Shows Submitted to The End in 2023

Keeping in mind this was our first calendar year and therefore have no benchmark to compare, I’m pretty stoked by that number. Those 402 submitted shows means we received 1.1 new submissions on average each and every day last year. Keep on keepin’ on, audio fiction creators!

As you know, we list audiodramas, audiobooks, fiction podcasts, radio plays, and other sorts of scripted (and occasionally unscripted) audio shows of a fictional nature in our directory only after one of these three conditions is met: the series is complete, a season finale has been posted, or the show is starting a new season soon.

Here’s a breakdown of last year’s submissions grouped by those conditions:

Graph showing data below in donut chart form

40% (160) were Season Finales
34% (or 138) were Completed Series
26% (or 104) were New Seasons Starting Soon

I’m a slightly less talented statistician than I am a predictor of human behavior, but I’m hoping next year's report has Completed Series outperforming Season Finales. But I’d bet money (not very much money) that we’ll see more New Season Starting Soon as well next year.

OK, that’s a quick look at the total “input,” if you will. It gets more fun when I dig into the output, I think you’ll find.

328 Audio Fiction Shows Added to The End’s Directory Were Completed In 2023

That title needs a little unpacking and squaring against the number of submissions. Because you might be wondering what happened to the 74 shows that didn’t get listed? Well… they did. They just weren’t completed in 2023. Creators can—and are encouraged to—submit their shows that were completed prior to 2023. This may come a shock to some, but fiction podcasting has been around since 2004, and audiodramas, audiobooks, and radio theater have been around for a lot longer than that!

In this section, I’m focusing just on the 328 shows we added to our directory that had ending dates sometime in 2023. Here’s how they break down:

57% (188) additions to our audio fiction directory in 2023 were Season Finales
32% (106) additions in 2023 were Completed Series
10% (34) were New Seasons that started up again in 2023

The dominance of Season Finales is more striking here, yet not at all surprising. While reaching a season finale is quite a milestone (far too many fiction podcasts are abandoned after a handful of episodes), wrapping up the entire series is a much more herculean effort. So yeah, I see a third of additions as Season Finales as a win, for sure.

But not all Season Finales are created equal, and we can go deeper on those 188 shows. Shocking absolutely no one, here's how those 188 finale’d shows break down:

128 Season 1 finales
24 Season 2 finales
23 Season 3 finales
4 Season 4 finales
4 Season 5 finales
2 Season 7 finales (no additions for Season 6 finales)
2 Season 8 finales
1 Season 9 finale

I don’t have much insight here, other than to say… well, duh!

One of these days, I may do a study of Season Finales that convert to Completed Series. But today is not that day. But I can do something similar right now by looking deeper at the 34 new Seasons Started and which season they are returning for.

Wow, that was a poorly constructed sentence. I’ll let the chart better explain what I mean:

Granted, 34 shows isn’t a very big dataset. Regardless, even limited data is sometimes interesting, and here it is in bullet form:

22 shows returned for their 2nd season
5 shows returned for their 3rd season
2 shows returned for their 4th season
1 show returned for the 5th season

Yeah, I think I’ll try to make that about “conversions” in next year's report.

Fiction Podcasts Dominated Audio Fiction Shows in 2023

Audio fiction listeners have myriad choices of not just what we listen to, but where we listen to it, thanks largely to fiction podcasting. Out of the 328 audio fiction shows we added to our directory in 2023 that were also completed in 2023, only 5% didn’t come with an RSS feed:

The breakdown of “where else” isn’t all that interesting, since it’s only 17 shows. However, I think that will grow in 2024, as more audio fiction platforms that don’t distribute with public RSS feeds are starting to submit their shows to us. Hooray, variety!

Dramatizations are the Preferred Creator Format in Audio Fiction

I’m old enough to remember when the majority of fiction podcasts were made by authors who would narrate their own books into a microphone in a closet, with only a tiny fraction putting in the effort to make a “full-cast” audiodrama.

My, my. How things change over [checks calendar] 20 years.

I’m convinced lots of recording still takes place in closets, but now creators are doing a lot more, including turning manuscripts into screen plays, engaging actors, designing the soundscape… it’s a lot.

254 Dramatized shows added to The End in 2023
69 were Narrated
5 added shows had a different presentation style, like improvisation, or a hybrid of the two

And one quick note: Many of the narrated shows in our directory use multiple voice actors and have a rich soundscape. So if you’re thinking all narrated shows are dry-read audiobooks—think again.

The Best Audio Fiction Shows that Completed in 2023

Out of the hundreds—if not thousands—of audiodramas, audiobooks, and fiction podcasts that completed in 2023, I recommend these to you. Each of these previously appeared in one (or more) of the issues of the newsletter, which I assume you are already subscribed to. But if not, fix that. Each week I send out a list of recently completed series, recent season finales, as well as show returning in a few days or weeks for a new season.

Click the title of any show to get more information, including links to listen via a couple dozen different listening apps beyond the usual suspects. #GoPodcasting

Meaney and Llewellyn are cadets in Lead Service, an organization established to police and protect the ever-expanding multiverse. They soon learn that things don’t always go by the book. JUMP LEADS is a science fiction comedy audiodrama series based on the webcomic of the same name.

Based on the webcomic of the same name.

When Peace of Ship opens a new HQ in Brazil, Jemma finds herself in new territory: Interim Head of HR. Her first task? Hire a new CTO. That is, until one candidate ends up dead. Now she must find the killer to save the company. What could go wrong?

Stars Kate Mara and Brett Gelman.

While traveling through Europe, newly-wed influencer couple, Karlie and Tre, notice an almost identical couple is following them and posting the same content - imitating their photos, poses, filters, and tags. Their inquiry snowballs into a double homicide and an influencer-targeted cult.

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Lillian Harper moves to the small town of Mt. Absalom to care for her estranged mother Dorothy after an injury. Living in the town’s boarding house which has been run by her family for generations, she discovers conspiracies, ghosts, and a new family in the house’s strange assortment of residents.

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When fiercely independent Princess Adelaide of Alpinoa discovers she must be married by Christmas in order to be crowned queen, she decides to secretly create the perfect prince out of handsome American commoner, Hayden.

PETRIFIED tells the chilling tales of ordinary people encountering the supernatural, and their terrifying fates.

Feedback: A Comedy of Impeccable Customer Service

Aspiring drag queen and Ring Wireless representative Akbar Shahzad has a problem with his ex-boyfriend. Anxious mother Valerie LeVac has a problem with her phone bill. Over a series of calls their lives will be changed by the brief but meaningful relationship that develops between them.

Produced by Dora Award-winning independent company Cue6 Theatre.

The first original audio drama from Hemlock Creek Productions, LIARS & LEECHES delves deep into the complicated horrors of grief, trauma, resilience, and steadfast human determination to uncover the truth.

Son wakes up aboard a spaceship bound for earth in an effort to recolonize. What he discovers, however, will change everything he knows about his world and himself.

Julie Burke partners with eccentric entrepreneurs "The Toade Bros” to desperately pitch their half-baked ideas to a string of bewildered investors. After the Toades manage to do the unthinkable, Julie is left with no choice but to take action.

A thrilling and spine-tingling limited audio series showcasing things that go bump in the night.

The cast boasts the considerable voice talents of Bethany Joy Lenz (One Tree Hill, Dexter), Clive Standen (Vikings, Doctor Who), and Michael O’Neill (Jack Ryan, Dallas Buyers Club).

A serialized thriller fiction podcast that weaves magical realism with urban mythology.

The Shrill Collective is women-led independent nonprofit theater company dedicated to incubating new works, challenging the cis-male-dominated canon, and using art to benefit community organizations.

Hannah is a zombie ‘living’ her best life long after the zombie apocalypse has come and gone.

An everyday internet support technician can also speak to people in the past and the future! After making a friend from 1999, he encounters a physicist living in the year 2052. How has she made contact? And does she know anything about the mysterious wormhole that appeared in his basement?

A multi-protagonist period drama set in a post-revolutionary Haiti that asks the central question: How far will people go for power?

An immersive audio drama about a disparate group of vampires living in the wild-and-wooly world of 1978 New York City. They've been safe and secure for decades… Until one night when a discovery of three little kid vampires turns their world upside-down forever.

David Flinch had hoped to be spared the horror of serving his family’s lord and master, Lord Underwood, but when he is summoned to the Flinch home in Spain, he knows his luck has run out. But David’s sister, Lydia, craves this servant role and will do anything to get it.

Also in this show: Underwood and Flinch; the thriller, One Among The Sleepless; his short stories; his readings of classic stories, including 18 from H.P. Lovecraft; and his unabridged reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Deep in interstellar space, the notorious pirate Captain Dolion of the Nebula stalks his prey. For ten years he has pursued the Nova Alliance in his vengeance for the deaths of his parents. Ten years he has hunted. Ten years he has dreamed of only one thing: Death to the Nova Alliance.

THE TRUTH makes movies for your ears. They’re short stories that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always intriguing.

We've won lots of awards! Founding member of Radiotopia.

A four-episode horror/thriller audio drama that follows 17-year-old Charlie and his best friends, Gama and Zoe, as they’re pulled into a life and death version of a video game called 13 Keys.

If you want a person dead, you call a hitman. If you want a monster dead, you call Lincoln Franks. But you better be able to pay the price he asks because Lincoln gets that paper — pay to slay, bitches.

Fans of Nancy Drew and Scooby Doo will delight in this hilarious, opioid-fueled dive into the world of latch-key children and the haunted, dangerous places that meddling leads.

A low-level ad man fated to lose at everything is informed by a psychic that the universe is against him, so he vows to change his destiny. Cheered on by his co-worker and best friend, he studies philosophy and faces an epic showdown with supernatural forces.

Connor Ratliff is the lead actor and is the star of the hit podcast 'DEAD EYES'. Chukwudi Iwuji is the villain in 'Guardians of the Galaxy 4', and Laila Robins has been in many films and TV including most recently 'The Walking Dead'.

When Myra Abernathy’s estranged father dies in a grisly “accident,” she comes home to take up his secret obsession: the hunt for her baby sister’s cold-case killer.

An audio comedy about Santa’s bastard daughter solving hardboiled Christmas crimes on the North Pole. Candy is a death-metal-loving, peppermint-schnapps-swilling PI trying to solve the North Pole’s first murder in 500 years without learning the true meaning of Christmas.

Socio-political thriller about the ethical dilemmas that surface when the pursuit of human connection blurs the lines between technology and reality.

Produced by and starring Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, and Troian Bellisario. Winner Best Fiction Script, 2024 Ambies.

On a lonely highway between life and the next life there’s one last stop that we all have to make. Desert Skies Astral Plane Fuel and Service Station serves travelers as they embark on their journey through the celestial spheres.

18 years after the Outbreak, the world is starting to re-organize and rebuild, but many different forms of humanity are still struggling to survive in the aftermath. And deep in the places where infected dwell, another descendant lies waiting.

Set in a futuristic United Kingdom where Dome-covered cities are governed by the Happiness Programme—a government-mandated drug eliminating negative emotions for universal bliss. Lurking beneath the Dome’s facade of utopia, a few individuals remain immune to the drug’s influence.

They call me Sleeper. I worked the same brain dead job, at the same fast food place, all of my life. And I’ve always lived in the same town. No one that lives in Corvat, ever leaves. Until today. Today I leave. Join my on my adventure.

Three mischievous narrators spin a surreal, reality-bending, sci-fantasy space western about a crotchety outlaw, a struggling cultist, and a diabolical bastard making awful decisions in a world on the edge of disaster.

A horror-anthology podcast set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia, a place where digging too deep into the mines was just the first mistake.