‘Dateline’ team has fans flocking to CrimeCon

The correspondents of NBC’s “Dateline” got a rock starworthy welcome when they took to the stage in a packed ballroom at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel last month, and the attendees of CrimeCon, an annual convention for fans of real-life stories of murder and mayhem, were happy to explain why.

“They are like the Rolling Stones of true crime,” said Greta Griffin, a 32year-old mother of three who traveled from Springfield, Missouri, to see Keith Morrison, Josh Mankiewicz and Dennis Murphy at the event. “Everybody just thinks they are cool.”

Griffin and her friend, Nikki Soda, 40, of Jupiter, Florida, were wearing custom-made white pullovers that pictured Morrison, 72, standing in front of a mug-shot height chart under the phrase, “Talk Dateline To Me.” His rugged, square-jawed face and shock of white hair was also emblazoned on the pop sockets of their iPhone cases.

Many of the CrimeCon fans who lined up for a photograph with Morrison

(wearing his signature skinny jeans and Converse slip-ons) asked him to pose with his trademark lean seen on the program.

“Keith is a sex symbol,” Murphy said. “I’m just glad I’m in his gravitational flow.”

Murphy and Morrison are old enough for Medicare coverage. Their show “Dateline” premiered when George H.W. Bush was in the White House. But the newsmagazine has become a pop culture phenomenon, propelled by a growing public appetite for true-crime stories. The enduring success of “Dateline” — one of the most profitable network TV news shows — reflects the growing appeal of the true-crime genre despite big changes in viewing habits.

“Dateline” airs 90 hours a week across NBC, several cable networks and on local TV stations across the country.

Through the first six months of 2019, 106 million people have spent at least six minutes watching a “Dateline” episode.

The show has benefited from true crime’s role as a dependable fixture for cable networks that have battled audience declines because of competition from streaming. Channels such as HLN and A&E have seen their ratings stabilize after adding more true-crime series. NBC Universal’s Oxygen remade itself as a true-crime network in 2017 and saw its ratings surge.

Discovery Inc.’s true crime channel Investigation Discovery has been the most-watched entertainment cable network for the 25- to 54-year-old demographic. It also has the highest average length of tune-in of any network: 50 minutes.

Henry Schleiff, the group president at Discovery who oversees ID, said the proliferation of programming choices has helped his channel, which airs repackaged “Dateline” episodes.

“We all live in a confusing world, especially with the number of entertainment options,” Schleiff said. “‘What am I going to watch when? Am I going to binge? Do I watch it on which platform?’ In that world, we offer predictability and consistency.”

The emergence of Netflix as a destination for true crime enthusiasts with such series as “Making a Murderer” and “Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes” has helped stimulate interest for all of the shows, according to Bill Hague, executive vice president at the research firm Magid Associates.

True crime podcasts such as “Serial” and the Los Angeles Times’ “Dirty John” — both of which had tens of millions of downloads, with the latter adapted into a scripted drama for cable network Bravo — have also expanded the audience.

“These are compelling stories that are authentic,” Hague said. “People like the intellectual exercise of following along and solving them themselves. It’s a category that’s having its moment.”

The passion of true crime fans is evident with the growth of CrimeCon, launched three years ago by the New York digital media and live events company Red Seat Ventures. The three-day convention attracted 3,600 fans, up 20% from last year, who paid $199 and more to meet the stars of “Dateline” and 20 other true crime TV series, the company said.

Many attendees were women between ages 30 and 55 who say they personally connect with the female victims frequently depicted on “Dateline.”

“We think ‘that could be me or my sister or my daughter,’ ” Griffin said.

Tales of romance gone wrong can make some fans feel better about their own lives. “I was out of work for a while and my life was in a bit of turmoil,” said Marian Marshall, 49, of Ottawa, Ontario. “While watching ‘Dateline,’ I felt ‘at least I wasn’t murdered.’ It shouldn’t be comforting. But when you watch it, it’s comforting.”

Mankiewicz, 63, believes the openand-shut cases on “Dateline” are satisfying in an increasingly chaotic time for the country.

“I think people like seeing the system work correctly,” he said. “They live in a world where nothing works the way it’s supposed to except at Friday nights at 10 when that scoundrel gets what’s coming to him.”

NBC News produces 100 new hours of “Dateline” each year. This summer it airs four hours a week on NBC, including repeats. In the fall, the show will expand to two new hours every Friday.