The simply named Podcast Awards apparently have been going on for eight years, though I have seen little coverage of the event. This year’s ceremony happened at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas, just ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show. With such timing, it seems like news of the award winners was lost within the avalanche of CES reports.
The Podcast Awards nominees and winners are voted on by visitors to the awards website, beginning in October of each year. There are 22 categories of awards, just two more than the better publicized Stitcher Awards, which made its debut this past December. However, the Podcast Awards appear to be less dominated by the same ’casts that top the iTunes list or the Stitcher List.
This year’s Podcast Award winners are dominated by what I call pure-play podcasts, which are ones that are produced exclusively for podcast distribution, rather than radio shows–like This American Life–that are also distributed as podcasts. While, the People’s Choice winner is the ESPN Fantasy Focus Football podcast, such big network affiliation is the exception, rather than the rule with these awards.
Other winners include the Best of the Left podcast, for Best Produced, and Throwing Shade for best LGBT podcast. Both the list of nominees and winners should provide some good recommendations for new podcasts to add to your playlist.
I only wish that the Podcast Awards were better publicized; I could not find a single news item about it on Google News, for instance. Wider recognition of honors like this would only help boost the popularity and audience for podcasts, while giving better exposure to the ’casts that are honored.
Nominations for the 2013 awards begin October 1.
