Stitcher is a smartphone app that lets you aggregate radio shows and podcasts, stored on your phone for on demand listening or streaming from the web. The three year-old service is now launching the first Stitcher Awards across 20 different categories, like best comedy, best social commentary and most original show. All the voting happens on facebook, so you need to have an account and be willing to “like” Stitcher first in order to participate.
Stitcher is accepting nominations for the awards until Oct. 19. The nomination page says that “winners will be determined based on popular voting and Stitcher List rankings.” The Stitcher List is sort of the “Hot 100” of podcasts and radio shows listened to using the service. The company also says that “the Stitcher Awards Committee ultimately reserves the right to determine the final winners.” I take that to mean the Awards will not strictly be determined by votes, such that a show needs to have lots of listeners in addition to getting lots of votes.
What I’ll be curious to see is whether the awards are dominated by top syndicated broadcast radio shows that are available on Stitcher, or if podcasts that are not also broadcast shows will have a significant showing. And how much will the list of award recipients differ from the Stitcher List? I’ll certainly be voting for my favorite podcasts.
