Date 2005 | Presented by New Media Expo | |
Awarded for Excellence in podcasting Official website | ||
The People's Choice Podcast Awards, better known as the Podcast Awards, are a set of United States-centric awards given annually to the best podcasts as voted by the general public. Founded in 2005 by Todd Cochrane of Podcast Connect Inc., the Podcast Awards were bought by New Media Expo in September 2014. The first Podcast Awards show was held in 2006 (awarding shows for the 2005 calendar year) had over 350,000 people vote for their nominated podcasts, with nearly 1000 people attending the awards ceremony. The 10th annual Podcast Awards Show, the first show run exclusively by the New Media Expo, took place at Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino on April 14, 2015. It was hosted by Chris Jericho and Emily Morse.
Contents
Rules
The nominations begin on a set date (January 19, 2015 for the 2014 awards) and continue for fifteen days. Voters are allowed to nominate a set of shows once a day. The nomination entry form asks for the name of the podcast, the podcast url, the nominator's name and email address, and additional comments. The email address must be valid, and nominators must verify their vote using an email link.
After the fifteen days of nominations, Podcast Connect and twenty-two listeners volunteers selected in January will review all the nominations over a seven- to ten-day period. In order to qualify, the podcast must be started prior to August 1 of that voting year, be in an appropriate category, have more than eight episodes, and have an RSS feed with enclosures visible on their website. A grading sheet is used in the review. The total number of nominations a podcast receives accounts for only 40% of the grading. The remaining 60% is determined by quality of the website's design (15%), quality of sound (15%), quality of deliverance and show format (10%), and relevance of content (20%).
Once the top ten nominees in each category have been established, the final voting slate is released. Voting in this round lasts for fifteen days (in the past, the maximum number of nominees to choose from was five). Winners of the People's Choice and Best Produced awards cannot win any categories the following year.
Criticism
Some critics have complained that the Podcast Awards lack publicity, which results in the same podcasts winning awards every year. While some podcasters are aware of the awards and mobilize their listeners to vote, many do not realize they exist.
Categories and winners
The Podcast Awards consists of twenty-two categories. Winners are announced during a ceremony which includes a live web stream. The prizes awarded to winners are donation/sponsor-driven via PayPal. In 2009, they were able to award podcasters almost $3,500 in prizes, with additional website exposure through 2009-2010 of seventeen million plus hits.
†The Podcast Awards were not held in 2014.
*Prior to 2010, Science and Technology were combined as one category.
Podcast awards are awarded for the previous calendar year. For example, the 2014 awards ceremony took place on April 14, 2015.