Cases that might otherwise stay closed get reopened.
For nearly four decades, a Saturday night television program has served as one of American journalism's more persistent instruments of accountability — reopening cases, challenging convictions, and sitting with the uncomfortable truths that official records sometimes obscure. As '48 Hours' enters its 38th season, it carries forward a mission that predates the true-crime boom it helped inspire: not merely to narrate crime, but to investigate it, and occasionally to undo its worst miscarriages. The program's expansion into podcasting and streaming suggests that the appetite for serious crime journalism has not diminished — it has simply dispersed, finding new vessels across the fractured landscape of modern attention.
- A program built on the premise that closed cases are not always settled ones is entering its 38th year with more platforms, more correspondents, and more unresolved questions than ever before.
- The tension at the heart of the work is not ratings but justice — wrongly convicted individuals still imprisoned, cold cases still dormant, and systemic failures in courts that sentenced Black men to death by all-White juries in 1990.
- Podcast series are now doing what the Saturday broadcast cannot always accommodate: following a single case for years, sitting with survivors, and tracing how a real murder in a Chicago housing project became a horror franchise.
- The program's reach has expanded across Paramount+, Netflix, YouTube, and Pluto TV, meeting an audience that no longer waits for Saturday night but is nonetheless waiting for the next story that demands to be told.
- Behind the correspondents and their on-camera confrontations with killers is a production infrastructure — executive producers, senior producers, directors — whose collective labor is what transforms investigation into accountability.
On Saturday nights for nearly four decades, '48 Hours' has occupied the space where real crime meets real journalism — where cases that seemed closed get reopened, and where the wrongly imprisoned sometimes walk free. Entering its 38th season, the program carries the same mission it has held since 1988: to report with rigor, to follow cases for years, and to ask the questions others will not.
The record is substantial. The program has helped exonerate people convicted of crimes they did not commit, solved cold cases gone dormant for years, and accumulated Peabody Awards, multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award — honors that accrue only through sustained, serious work. It airs Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern on CBS, but its reach now extends across Paramount+, Netflix, YouTube, and Pluto TV, with a deep archive available to anyone who wants to revisit a case.
The real expansion, though, is in podcasting. Correspondent Erin Moriarty has spent 25 years following the case of Crosley Green, a Black man convicted of murder by an all-White jury in 1990 and sentenced to death — a new podcast series examines the inconsistencies in his trial and the possibility of his freedom. Her other series revisits the 2013 Daniel Marsh murders in Davis, California. Peter Van Sant's six-episode series traces a dark love triangle involving a dog trainer and an heiress, where the question of hunter and hunted remains deliberately unresolved.
Elsewhere in the podcast universe, Natalie Morales sits with survivors of violent attacks, Dometi Pongo uncovers the racial injustice behind the real murder that inspired the Candyman franchise, and a companion show called 'Post Mortem' takes listeners behind the scenes with the correspondents and producers who carry these stories. The audience for serious crime journalism is not shrinking — it is simply moving, across devices and time slots, waiting for the next case that demands to be told.
On Saturday nights for nearly four decades, "48 Hours" has occupied a particular space in American television—the place where real crime meets real journalism, where cases that seemed closed get reopened, where the wrongly imprisoned sometimes walk free. The program enters its 38th season this fall with the same mission it has carried since 1988: to dig into the cases that matter, to report with rigor, and to let the facts speak.
The show's track record speaks for itself. Over nearly four decades, "48 Hours" has helped exonerate people convicted of crimes they did not commit. It has solved cold cases that had gone dormant for years. It has won Peabody Awards, multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio Television News Directors Association, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award—the kind of honors that accumulate only when a program consistently does serious work. The appeal, according to CBS, rests on original reporting and impact journalism: correspondents who do not simply narrate crime but investigate it, who follow cases for years, who sit across from killers and ask the questions others will not.
The program airs Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern on CBS, but the reach extends far beyond that time slot. Episodes stream on Paramount+. Full episodes appear on Pluto TV, YouTube, and Netflix. There is a free, advertiser-supported streaming channel on Pluto TV and Paramount+. The archive on CBSNews.com holds years of reporting—full episodes, articles, photo galleries—available to anyone who wants to revisit a case or catch up on one they missed.
But the real expansion is happening in podcasting. "48 Hours" has built what amounts to a true-crime podcast universe, with multiple series exploring cases in depth. Erin Moriarty, one of the program's principal correspondents, has spent 25 years following the case of Crosley Green, a Black man convicted of murder by an all-White jury in 1990 and sentenced to death. A new podcast series examines the inconsistencies in his trial and the aftermath, potentially opening a path to his freedom. Another Moriarty series, "Fifteen: Inside the Daniel Marsh Murders," revisits the 2013 killings of an elderly couple in Davis, California, that left the city gripped in fear. Peter Van Sant, another longtime correspondent, has produced "Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress, and the Bodyguard," a six-episode series about a dark love triangle where the question of hunter and hunted remains deliberately unresolved.
Natalie Morales hosts "It Could Have Been Me," a limited series that sits with survivors of violent attacks—people whose stories are not just about what happened to them but about how they lived to tell it. Dometi Pongo's "Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder" uncovers the reality of racial injustice and housing inequality in Chicago's housing projects, tracing how a real murder inspired a horror franchise. There is also "Killer Conversation," where Moriarty and Van Sant break down how the criminal mind works, drawing on their years of direct interviews with people convicted of serious crimes.
A companion podcast called "Post Mortem," hosted by Anne-Marie Green, goes behind the scenes with the correspondents and producers who know these stories best, with new episodes released on Tuesdays. There is also a podcast feed of full "48 Hours" episodes for people who want to listen on the go.
The team behind the program includes executive producer Nancy Kramer, director Matt DeVoe, and senior producers Patti Aronofsky and Lourdes Aguiar, among others. The correspondents—Moriarty, Van Sant, Natalie Morales, and others—are the public face of the work, but the program is built on the reporting of many hands.
What drives all of this, across platforms and formats, is the same principle: original reporting that matters. Cases that might otherwise stay closed. Convictions that might otherwise stand unchallenged. The program's 38th season begins with that same commitment, and with the understanding that the audience for serious crime journalism is not shrinking—it is simply moving across devices and time slots, waiting for the next story that demands to be told.
Notable Quotes
The enduring appeal of the program is based on original reporting and impact journalism.— CBS News description of '48 Hours'
The show has helped exonerate the wrongly convicted and helped solve cold cases.— Program mission statement
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a show about crime and justice need to exist across so many platforms? Isn't one time slot enough?
The audience for this work is not sitting in one place anymore. Some people watch Saturday nights on CBS. Others stream on Paramount+ on a Tuesday afternoon. Some listen to a podcast while driving. The story doesn't change, but the way people consume it does. The platforms are just the delivery system. What matters is that the reporting reaches people.
You mention that the show has exonerated wrongly convicted people. How does that actually happen? Does the show solve the case, or does it just raise questions?
It raises questions that matter. When a correspondent like Erin Moriarty spends 25 years on a single case, following the inconsistencies in a trial, talking to the person in prison, talking to the people who convicted them, that work creates pressure. It creates a record. It makes it harder for a case to stay closed when the evidence doesn't hold up. The show doesn't have the power to free anyone—only courts do that—but it can make freedom possible.
The podcast about Crosley Green mentions he was convicted by an all-White jury in 1990. Is that the main story here?
It's part of it. The main story is that a man has been in prison for a crime he says he didn't commit, and the trial that put him there had serious problems. The racial composition of the jury matters because it speaks to who gets to decide guilt and innocence. But the real question is whether the evidence actually proved what it claimed to prove. That's what 25 years of reporting can uncover.
What's the difference between "48 Hours" and other true-crime shows?
Most true-crime programming is about entertainment—the puzzle, the twist, the resolution. "48 Hours" is about impact. The show cares whether someone goes free. It cares whether a cold case gets solved. It cares about the people involved, not just the story. That's why it has won the awards it has won. That's why people trust it.