Crime time: Readly and The Evening Standard launch true crime series

Readly, the digital magazine and newspaper app, has today launched a true crime retro series with The Evening Standard, featuring some of the most well known crimes across the last 130 years.

This is the first time Readly has offered its readers a crime series and responds to latest research showing that the appetite for reading in the genre is high with 74 percent of people saying they choose to read the category with reasons cited including to understand the psychological nature of a criminal (61%), the mystery involved in solving cases (53%) and fuelling the reader's inner detective and desire for justice (40%).

Readly’s in app data shows that true crime content generates the highest average reading time per issue across several genres including history, lifestyle, and celebrity titles. BBC History shows exceptionally strong engagement, with its issue themed Victorian Murder Scandals topping the charts and All About History with an issue exploring The Dark Side of Da Vinci.

True crime content in lifestyle and entertainment magazines also lead in reading time. Celebrity title, Chat: Murder Most Foul records an average reading time of 30 minutes per reader — the highest in that category. Meanwhile, lifestyle magazines such as That’s Life Crime Scene and Chat: True Crime Special demonstrate even higher engagement, with 44 and 35 minutes of average reading time per issue, respectively.

This compares with TV, film and cinema (27 minutes), Science (20 minutes) and Cars and Motoring (19 minutes) which are Readly’s top categories in terms of where readers spend the longest time reading per session according to its 2024 trends report.

The True Crime Retro Series includes twelve issues from The Evening Standard covering some of the most notorious crimes and criminals throughout history such as Jack the Ripper, The Great Train Robbery, Serial killer Fred West House of Horrors and The Pearl Robbery.

“True crime often mimics the pacing of fiction, pulling readers in with suspense and psychological intrigue. The category draws readers into longer, more immersive reading sessions, with standout issues seeing average reading times far above the norm.  The true crime themed lifestyle, history and celebrity magazines are amongst some of the most read on the Readly app in terms of reading time.

We’re therefore delighted to be collaborating with the Evening Standard to bring this captivating, historic capsule to our subscribers.  We are dedicated to providing our subscribers with the content they crave and are committed to working alongside publishers to offer distinctive content like this to complement the array of magazines and newspapers available on our app”, says Chris Couchman, Head of Content at Readly.

The True Crime retro series includes:

●         Jack the Ripper, breaking coverage of final murder, 10 Nov 1888

●         Notorious Dr. Crippen Trial, 18 Oct 1910

●         The Pearl Robbery, 18 Sep 1913

●         Infamous NY gangster in London Underworld, 30 Aug 1930

●         Ruth Ellis Case (last woman to be executed in Britain), 28 April 1955

●         The Profumo Affair, Christine Keller and Soviet espionage, 14 Jun 1963

●         The Great Train Robbery, 8 Aug 1963

●         Kray Twins arrest, 8 May 1968

●         Kray Twins accused of murder, 15 Oct 1968

●         The Yorkshire Ripper captured, 5 Jan 1981

●         Brinks Matt Robbery, Guard sentenced, 17 Feb 1984

●         Serial killer Fred West caught, House of Horrors, 7 May 1994

“We are pleased to be partnering with Readly for this Crime Retro Series. Leveraging our incredible crime archive to re-surface some of the most well read crime stories throughout history has been a fascinating project. It’s great to be able to collaborate with Readly on this, bringing fresh eyes to our title and showing the expert journalism that covered these crimes to capture and engage readers at the time and again”, says Sophie Hanbury, Director of Strategic Content Partnerships for The Independent and Evening Standard

The launch of the Evening Standard True Crime Retro Series is the latest in a series of retro launches for Readly and part of its continued effort to bolster its content portfolio. Readly offers its readers a broad range of content and over 8,000 digital magazines and newspapers on the platform including true crime magazines such as Real Crime, Crime Monthly and Chat, True Crime Special.

For more information visit www.readly.com.

ENDS

For more details contact: [email protected] or 07879 818 711

Research: The representative online survey was conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Readly in March 2025. 1,000 people in the UK were surveyed. Comparative data from Sweden and Germany is also available.

About Readly
Readly is a European category leader for digital magazines and newspapers. The Company offers a digital subscription service where customers have unlimited access to 8,000 national and international titles - all in one app and at a fixed monthly fee. Readly has subscribers in 50 countries and content available in 17 different languages. In collaboration with around 1,000 publishers worldwide, Readly is digitising the newspaper and magazine industry. In 2024, revenues amounted to SEK 725 million. The Readly share is listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market and FNCA Sweden AB is the Company’s Certified Advisor. For more information, please visit https://corporate.readly.com