Congratulations to the 7th Annual slate of shows nominated for the Podcast Awards

We kick off nominations in just a few days and I want to prep everyone on the process..

Todd…

The 2011 Podcast Awards the 7th Annual will kick off nominations on Sept 15th 2011. Details are available on rules and nomination process at PodcastAwards.com

This past Saturday we held the 6th Annual Podcast Awards and recognized all of the shows that were nominated and those that won. With well over 3 million people submitting votes this year the competition was fierce. In the end 22 shows broke out in their respective categories. Congrats to the winners. For more details visit PodcastAwards.com

Peoples Choice – Tell ‘Em Steve Dave!
Best Produced – Radiolab
Best Video Podcast – TED
Business – Career Tools
Comedy – Tell ‘Em Steve Dave
Cultural/Arts – Decoder Ring Theatre
Education – The History of Rome
Entertainment – The Fringe Podcast
Food and Drink – Beer Download
Gaming – 4Player Podcast
General – The Survival Podcast
GLBT – Savage Love
Health/Fitness – QuackCast
Mature – WTF with Marc Maron
Movies and Film – Doug Love Movies
Music – Irish & Celtic Music Podcast
Politics / news – Free Talk Live.com
Religion Inspirations – Atheist News Podcast
Science – The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
Sports – The BS Report
Technology – This Week in Tech
Travel – WDW Radio Show

The 6th Annual People’s Choice Podcast Awards nominations open on November 7th 2010. Please visit PodcastAwards.com and review the rules for the 2010 event.

Todd..

As I sit here in early July I have to start thinking about the 2010 Podcast Awards. Honestly the past couple of years the event has been exhausting. It takes up well over 100 hours of my time each year to pull off.

Last year was the first year that we did not break even financially, after paying all expenses and increased trophy costs. I had about a $1000.00 in additional expenses that came out of Podcast Connects pockets. The goal is break even not loose money!

So the question I am asking myself should the awards continue. I am also irritated that last year we went to all that work and less than half of the winners were willing to come on the awards show. Plus Ustream.tv even though we warned them multiple times, got blown out when we went over 4000 people on the live stream.

While I will likely punish myself maybe it is time to bring in some podcasters to help. What do you think?

People’s Choice
ESPN: Fantasy Focus Football

Best Produced
Best of the Left

Best Video Podcast
This Week in Tech

Best Mobile Phone Formatted Podcast
AppSlappy

Best Produced
Best of the Left

Business
NPR Planet Money

Comedy
Daily Giz Wiz

Cultural / Arts
Imprint

Education
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe

Entertainment
MuggleCast

Food and Drink
Munchcast

Gaming
4Player Podcast

General
This American Life

GLBT
Feast of Fun

Health / Fitness
Quackcast

Mature
The Adam Carolla Podcast

Movies / Films
Spill

Podsafe Music
Irish & Celtic Music Podcast

Political
The Young Turks

Religion Inspiration
Reasonable Doubts

Sports
ESPN: Fantasy Focus Football

Technology / Science
Security Now

Travel
WDW Radio

That is the question I get asked the most when it comes to the Podcast Awards. My response is that each category cost close to $400.00 if we want to keep the standards high. The trophies we have made each year are custom designed.

They are produced by the same company that produces the Country Music Award Bullets. Any podcaster that has received one of these beautiful trophies will tell you that they are amazing. We have them laser engraved as well.

I would love to add categories but we need people to get out their wallets in advance of the 2010 event and step up to the plate.

I look forward to writing this post each year, but I  have to admit some of the data results cannot be expressed properly on this blog. On one hand I want to applaud podcast host that get it, but for a great many others I wish I could simply scream and shake them by the shoulders and say wake the hell up.

The results make it apparent that the reason many of your shows are not growing, is because a percentage of have set yourselves up for failure. Many have failed to do the basics on their websites to make it easy for listeners to consume the content.

We examined Podcasters sites that received more than 10 nominations during the 2009 Podcast Awards Nomination Period. A total of 2381 sites were reviewed.

NOTE: The below information has nothing to do with how the podcast awards voting slate is derived. This is a seperate effort I undertake each year to get a sampling of what is happening in the podcasting space and on podcasters sites.

If you quote these numbers in your own blog post please provide a link back to the source data as I have went to considerable expense to provide these numbers free to the podcasting community. My personal company Podcast Connect paid for this.

Base Review consisted of 2381 Sites:

21% Had Invalid Podcast RSS Feeds.
59% Had Feeds with Errors but where Valid.
51% Had an RSS Icon on their default landing page that was a Blog Feed only.
21% Had an RSS Icon on their default landing page that was Podcast Ready.
23% Had a Podcast RSS Feeds Buried on a SubPage in their Website
44% Of Sites had a Podcast RSS feed we could subscribe to!
81% Had a Visible iTunes Subscription Icon on their default landing Page.
93% Had a Visible iTunes Subscription Icon someplace in their website.
6% Had a Visible Zune Marketplace Icon on their websites. (See Note Below)
43% Had a Visible e-mail contact address on their website.
14% Had a Newsletter sign-up page.
11% Had a call in number for listeners to comment on their shows.
88% of the sites had good unique website branding.
59% Had less than one paragraph of show notes for their past 5 podcast.
51% Had a physical download Link on their websites.
71% Were Creating Audio Only.
9% Were Creating Video Only.
20% Were Creating Audio and Video.
23% Number of Podcasters Blogging as well as Podcast content.
19% Where creating Audio, Video & Blog Posts
66% Of total Nominations were Shows creating Audio, Video and Blog Posts
3% of Sites where mobile phone ready (iPhone, Android, Palm Pre)
37% Did not have their show listed on Blubrry.com
51% Did not have their show listed on PodcastAlley.com
14% Did not have their show listed on Podcast.com
41% Had a Twitter Link on their website
53% Had a Facebook Link on their website

While I think the data points paint an obvious picture let me lay out a few of the obvious points.

Source RawVoice: Do podcasters realize the Zune has been responsible for 17% overall increase in unique podcast listeners over the past two years? I question why podcasters would ignore a huge segment of potential listeners by not carrying a Zune subscribe icon on their website.

There are 100′s of devices that cannot sync to iTunes, and by not having a Podcast RSS feed visible on the main page of their websites, that they are simply not reaching those listeners. This includes the millions of people who have smart phones.

Why do we continue to see such jacked up RSS feeds?

Five years into podcasting and podcasters still do not understand that RSS is the lifeblood of their podcasts. It blows me away that it is impossible to find Podcast RSS feeds on popular podcasters sites. I find it striking that I can find links to people’s Facebook pages, but have a hard time finding a link to subscribe to their shows.

Smartly some podcasters are learning that they cannot rely on Audio or Video alone that they have to a variety of media. Audio, Video, Blogging

Show Notes: Some Podcasters are finally waking up and finding out that Google can be their friend and that by writing comprehensive show notes results in more traffic to their websites.

I will let you do your own interpretation of Part 1 of my report, but I am convinced the success of my personal show is largely to do with content creators not doing the basics to be found, seen, heard and subscribed to.

Part 2 will be a comprehensive look at how podcast networks are playing a key role for podcasters.

I do want to extend a big thank you to the team in the Philippines that did this work.

Todd…