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Sword and Scale Explodes with 1 Million Downloads
In just one year Sword and Scale has become one of the most popular true-crime podcasts ever.
Miami, Florida (PRWEB) February 23, 2015 -- Sword and Scale (www.swordandscale.com), the South Florida-
based true-crime podcast known for its gripping storytelling, announced today that it has reached one million
downloads. The milestone comes just over a year after its launch on January 1, 2014 – despite proclamations of
the “death of podcasting” in various media outlets at the time.
The skepticism of late 2013 was a departure from the optimism expressed in the CNET article “Researcher sees
huge growth in podcast audience” in July 2005, when programs like Adam Curry’s “Podshow” popularized the
medium and inspired Motley Fool to proclaim “The Death of Radio.” It was in this environment that Miramar,
Florida resident Mike Boudet set on his lofty ambition to launch a true-crime podcast unlike any that existed
before.
“I wanted to create a program that is highly entertaining, story-driven and steers clear of the over-the-top
sensationalism and polarization of shows like Nancy Grace,” says Boudet, who singlehandedly writes,
produces, edits, mixes and publishes the one-hour, bi-weekly podcast. “There are so many tragic and
unbelievable cases happening every day that demonstrate, in remarkable fashion, the underlying evil nature of
humanity. Many of these stories never get told. I wanted to tell them and not in the way the local news does,
edited down to sterilized 5-minute segments. I wanted to tell these stories in such a way that the listener will
have a hard time forgetting them.”
The audio program Boudet created, Sword and Scale, does not hold back on the true horrors of crime. It blends
together 911-tapes, police interrogations, witness interviews and trial testimony along with unsettling music and
sound effects. All along, Boudet narrates the story, filling in details, but letting the collection of audio tell the
sometimes heart-wrenching story from the mouths of those who were most affected by it. Some listeners simply
can’t handle the brutal, unsettling and unedited nature of some of the content.
“The medium of radio is so much more powerful than television. You can tell a story in a way that it becomes
personal to the audience, because they have to fill in the visuals for themselves and their interpretations are
usually much more horrible than any camera could ever capture,” added Boudet.
The show began to its rise to popularity when pop culture entertainment website Chud.com published an article
called “Sword & Scale’s 20th Episode Is Too Disturbing for Words” about what fans still view as one of Sword
and Scale’s most disturbing shows. For this episode, which revolved around a collection of chat logs by a group
of pedophile cannibals, Boudet used computer voices to reenact the conversations. The result was an
extraordinarily eerie episode where any humanity and emotion is stripped from the truly horrific dialog. It was
unlike anything anyone had heard before.
"With Sword and Scale Mike has created a podcast with such brutal content and extreme subjects that it will
make the most hardened listeners want to sleep with the lights on and not talk to strangers," says Jason Kretten
co-host of the podcast HorrorHound Radio, an offshoot of the highly popular HorrorHound Weekend
Convention. Upon discovering it, Kretten and the rest of the HorrorHound Radio co-hosts loved Sword and
Scale so much they interviewed Boudet on their program in July of last year. "It was only natural to have Mike
on our podcast to help show horror fans that human nature can be far scarier than the most intense horror film,"
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Then in September, the rise in popularity of NPR’s Serial created a massive audience of new true-crime fans
that also tuned in to Sword and Scale – growing its audience exponentially almost overnight. The end result:
More than 1 million downloads in just over a year, and the show continues its meteoric rise in popularity with
another 300,000 downloads in the first two months of 2015.
“I suddenly had to worry about my server going down because it couldn’t handle the traffic. I had to lease
another dedicated server just to serve the podcasts because there was just too much demand.” As you might
have guessed, Boudet also built the website, maintains the servers, and actively promotes his podcast on social
media. In addition, he hires a variety of writers to offer additional content on his website, swordandscale.com,
with additional true-crime articles which are not the same typical stories you would hear on traditional media
such as HLN.
“I envision a future where everything will be à la carte, on-demand. Gone will be the old subscription model of
cable TV and satellite radio, and instead you’ll be able to download any individual TV or radio show. That will
be the norm. We won’t be paying for 300 channels when there’s really only one program we like.”
Although Boudet’s vision of the future of entertainment seems a distance away, he remains determined to put
out the best possible true-crime podcast available today. “I want to keep pushing the envelope, keep doing
things that no one’s thought to do before, or were told they couldn’t. What’s the point of doing a podcast if you
stick to what’s ‘safe’?”
The latest episode of Sword and Scale, Episode 38, takes on the highly controversial topic of pedophilia with
documentary filmmaker Jan Willem Breure, who produced the film Are All Men Pedophiles? Yet again,
Boudet breaks the mold and challenges the status quo of what a true-crime entertainment program can be.
About Sword and Scale
Launched in January 2014 and based in South Florida, Sword and Scale (www.swordandscale.com) is a true-
crime podcast known for its gripping storytelling, creative audio effects and engaging interviews. Each
biweekly episode regularly reaches 50,000 downloads by fans around the world.
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Contact Information
Mike Boudet
Sword and Scale
http://swordandscale.com
+1 3053561252
Online Web 2.0 Version
You can read the online version of this press release here.
