As murder loses its grip on the true crime genre, producers are turning their attention to scams, scandals and social harm. Backed by strategic commissioning shifts and changing viewer appetites, the genre is evolving — away from killers and toward con artists, cult leaders and the crimes hiding in plain sight.

A shift is taking place in the world of true crime, and the numbers are starting to tell the story. While murder still dominates the genre, there is a clear movement towards other sub-genres, particularly fraud, scams and abuse, which are quietly but steadily gaining ground.

Between 2020 and 2024, the proportion of first-run true crime documentaries focusing on murder or death dropped from 38.1% to 32.5%, according to figures from market research firm Ampere Analysis. At the same time, fraud-related stories, still a relatively minor strand of the genre, almost doubled – climbing from 1.6% to 2.7%. Drugs and abuse-related content also grew, with the former rising from 2.8% to 4.5%, alongside stories related to social media, seeing significant though fluctuating increases. “Crime documentaries relating to drugs are more common in 2024 than two years prior, as are docs following stories of fraud,” says Rahul Patel, principal analyst at Ampere.

While murder remains the most prevalent theme, accounting for roughly one in three of all first-run crime docs commissioned last year, Patel points out that this is down from the 37% to 38% range seen earlier in the decade. The genre may still be fixated on death, but the edges are fraying – and in those gaps, stories of deception, manipulation, and betrayal are taking hold.

Filmmakers like Dan Johnstone are feeling the shift firsthand. Known for directing and producing gritty series like The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer and American Cartel, Johnstone says: “I personally have tried to move away from the murder, because it is so devastating. And for me as a filmmaker, it is devastating to live in it.” His recent work, Cowboy Cartel for Apple TV+, swaps brutality for financial intrigue, examining money laundering through the lens of the US horse racing industry. “That was a different approach. For me, a much better approach,” he says.

Netflix, the largest global commissioner of crime documentaries, has played a major role in this pivot. The platform’s 2022 smash hit The Tinder Swindler, which became its most watched documentary of all time within 28 days of launch, showed the genre’s potential beyond murder. It paved the way for similar titles like Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare and Con Mum, both tapping into the public’s appetite for stories of fraud that are stranger than fiction. Hearst Networks EMEA-owned pay channel Crime+Investigation also greenlit 10-parter A Perfect Scam.

Kate Harrison, president of Cream Productions, describes the evolution succinctly: “Scams are a big deal. True crime is a way bigger envelope than it was five years ago.” That broader scope is echoed by David Karabinas, CEO of Texas Crew Productions, who recalls a now-obsolete saying he once had pinned to his office wall: “For it to work, someone has to die.” No longer. His company’s recent Hulu series How I Escaped My Cult tells stories where crimes are central, even if murder is not.

For US cable network ID, which remains a heavyweight in the space, this shift is not incidental – it’s strategic. Jason Sarlanis, ID’s president, said at C21’s Content London in December: “We’ve evolved the brand considerably in the three years that I’ve been here, and it has been reconfigured as a content engine for WBD at large in all things true crime.” ID’s upcoming series Toxic, directed by Johnstone and hosted by investigative journalist Elizabeth Chambers, explores toxic relationships and includes cases like that of convicted conman Anthony Strangis – once again showing how fraud can be just as gripping as homicide.

Former ID executive Jane Latman, who now runs prodco Twist under the Wheelhouse banner, is likewise focused on expanding the genre’s scope: “When I was a buyer at ID, we always talked about how do we stretch this genre? How do we make it as broad as possible?” she says. “These are stories of human nature, stories that are beyond murder mysteries, like cons, scandals, frauds.”

Social media has further cracked open the genre, spawning a new wave of documentaries centred on abuse, manipulation and exploitation online. Netflix’s Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing, and Hulu’s Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, both investigate how the internet can become a playground for abuse – often under the guise of content creation. Dan Korn, VP of programming at Hearst Networks UK, notes: “Social media, with catfishing and grooming, has absolutely created more and more of this kind of thing playing into the explosion of interest in true crime.”

That sense of immediacy and relevance is becoming more important than ever. Channel 5’s My Wife, My Abuser: The Secret Footage was a breakout hit in the UK, drawing over two million viewers on broadcast and more than five million on Netflix, according to Adrian Padmore, commissioning editor and VP of non-scripted UK originals at 5 and Paramount+. The exec believes it was the emotional truth of the story that resonated. “What was going on for them? How were they feeling? What sort of emotions as a viewer are we connecting with in terms of their experience?”

Meanwhile, Wrongly Accused, produced for AMC Networks International UK, and Britain’s Killer Teens, announced by Hearst Networks’ Crime+Investigation, represent two ends of the same spectrum – stories of injustice and trauma that tap into broader social concerns. “What [Netflix drama] Adolescence has done is really important in terms of educating people about a layer of activity that goes on in social media and elsewhere, that adults and parents have no sight of,” says Korn.

This emotional and ethical lens is also being adopted behind the scenes. Woodcut Media, producer of Murdered at First Sight and Britain’s Teen Killers, was a founding member of the Association of True Crime Producers, which aims to put victims at the centre of production. “We will tell the history of the killer, but we also need to honour the victims,” says founder Kate Beal.

What’s clear is that the genre’s centre of gravity is shifting – slowly, but undeniably. There’s still room for murder, but increasingly, it’s being joined by stories that ask deeper questions: why people lie, cheat, manipulate and hurt. And for the producers tasked with making these programmes, the aim is no longer just to shock or scare, but to connect, to understand, and sometimes, even to heal.

As murder loses its grip on the true crime genre, producers are turning their attention to scams, scandals and social harm. Backed by strategic commissioning shifts and changing viewer appetites, the genre is evolving — away from killers and toward con artists, cult leaders and the crimes hiding in plain sight.

A shift is taking place in the world of true crime, and the numbers are starting to tell the story. While murder still dominates the genre, there is a clear movement towards other sub-genres, particularly fraud, scams and abuse, which are quietly but steadily gaining ground.

Between 2020 and 2024, the proportion of first-run true crime documentaries focusing on murder or death dropped from 38.1% to 32.5%, according to figures from market research firm Ampere Analysis. At the same time, fraud-related stories, still a relatively minor strand of the genre, almost doubled – climbing from 1.6% to 2.7%. Drugs and abuse-related content also grew, with the former rising from 2.8% to 4.5%, alongside stories related to social media, seeing significant though fluctuating increases. “Crime documentaries relating to drugs are more common in 2024 than two years prior, as are docs following stories of fraud,” says Rahul Patel, principal analyst at Ampere.
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