Month: May 2017

Winners of the 2017 British Podcast Awards

~ jen

The winners of the 2017 British Podcast awards have been announced. The winners were chosen by over fifty independent judges working in podcasting. The British Podcast Awards website has the full list (with links to the winning podcasts.)

audioBoom Podcast of the Year 2017: Fathers & Sons – Radio Wolfgang with Mr. Porter

Listeners’ Choice Awards 2017: Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review – Somethin’ Else for BBC Radio 5Live

Podcast Champion 2017: Adam Buxton

Best Review:

  • Gold: Song by Song – Martin Zaltz Austwick and Sam Pay
  • Silver: The Penguin Podcast – Somethin’ Else
  • Bronze: Soundtracking with Edith Bowman – Edith Bowman

True Crime:

  • Gold: They Walk Among Us – Benjamin Fitton and Rosanna Fitton
  • Silver: Body on the Moor – BBC Radio
  • Bronze: Untold: the Daniel Morgan Murder – Peter Jukes and Deeivya Meir

Branded Content supported by Create:

  • Gold: Fathers & Sons – Radio Wolfgang with Mr. Porter
  • Silver: Sound Matters – Third Ear/Quincey Sound production for B&O Play
  • Bronze: The National Trust Gardens Podcast – Fresh Air Production

Best Comedy supported by Podiant:

  • Gold: Beef & Dairy Network Podcast – Benjamin Partridge
  • Silver: The Adam Buxton Podcast – Adam Buxton
  • Bronze: Do The Right Thing – Fuzz Productions

Fiction:

  • Gold: Tracks – BBC Radio
  • Silver: Wooden Overcoats – Wooden Overcoats Ltd.
  • Bronze: Beef & Dairy Network Podcast – Benjamin Partridge

Smartest supported by Whistledown Studios:

  • Gold: Coffee Break Italian – Radio Lingua Network
  • Silver: Sciencish – Radio Wolfgang
  • Bronze: Sound Matters – Third Ear/Quincey Sound production for B&O Play

Represent supported by Upload Radio:

  • Gold: Melanin Millennials – The ShoutOut Network
  • Silver: Farmerama – Jo Barratt and Abby Rose
  • Bronze: Lunar Poetry Podcasts – David Turner

Best Radio Podcast supported by UK Radioplayer:

  • Gold: Short Cuts – Falling Tree Productions for BBC Radio
  • Silver: 50 Things That Changed The Modern Economy – BBC Radio Current Affairs for BBC World Service
  • Bronze: Ollie & Si – Ollie Gallant and Simon Alexander, Quidem Radio

Best New Podcast supported by the Radio Independents Group:

  • Gold: The Cinemile – Dave Corkery and Cathy Cullen
  • Silver: The Untold – BBC Radio 4
  • Bronze: Everyone Else – Eva Krysiak

Sport:

  • Gold: Fight Disciples – Fight Disciples
  • Silver: Hornet Heaven – Olly Wicken
  • Bronze: The Big Interview With Graham Hunter – Neil White

Best Interview supported by ipDTL:

  • Gold: Scientists not the Science – Stuart Higgins
  • Silver: What Goes On Here – Sam Walker
  • Bronze: Getting Better Acquainted – Dave Pickering

Current Affairs:

  • Gold: The Inquiry – BBC Radio Current Affairs for BBC World Service
  • Silver: The Economist asks – The Economist
  • Bronze: Weekly Economics Podcast – New Economics Foundation

International Award:

  • Gold: How To Be A Girl – Mario Mack, The Heard
  • Silver: Radiolab – WNYC
  • Bronze: Homecoming – Gimlet Media

Entertainment with Maple Street Studios:

  • Gold: Hip Hop Saved My life with Romesh Ranganathan – audioBoom
  • Silver: Probably True – Scott Flashheart Elliot
  • Bronze: Soundtracking with Edith Bowman – Edith Bowman

‘Other’ (AKA Most Original Podcast):

  • Gold: Between the Ears – BBC Radio
  • Silver: Mountain – Christopher Sleight
  • Bronze: Weird Tales and the Unexplainable – Bob Shoy

Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame Inductees 2017

~ jen

The Academy of Podcasters is a group of influential contributors to the podcast community who come together every year to vote on the winners of their annual Awards. These contributors are also in charge of voting annual inductees into the Hall of Fame.

The Academy of Podcasters Awards recognize and honor the best podcasters in their given niches and categories of podcasting. This event will also include annual inductions into the Academy of Podcasters Hall of Fame for podcasters who have revolutionized the podcasting space.

The 2017 Hall of Fame Inductees are:

Brian Ibbott is best known for his podcast Coverville.  Coverville is a podcast that started in 2004, produced every Wednesday, that focuses on cover songs of a previously written song. Coverville is also one of the longest running podcasts in the iTunes Store, and is in the top rankings for overall episode numbers. The show has won multiple awards over the years, and has been nominated as an AofP Awards finalist for Best Music Podcast.

Dan Klass has been releasing the award-winning The Bitterest Pill since 2004. Dan also co-wrote Podcast Solutions: The Complete Guide to Audio/Video Podcasting. Dan has produced and consulted for companies like Speedo, Grey Advertising, and Big Brothers/Sisters under his company Jacket Media, since 2005. He is a proud member of the Academy of Podcasters, and is a podcast instructor at UCLA university.

Elsie Escobar is a die hard podcast junkie who lives and breathes podcasting, and has worked in the medium for over ten years. She, like many of us, started as someone who barely knew what a digital recorder was, and has since grown into the co-host of the popular She Podcasts and The Feed: The Official Libsyn podcast. Elsie is currently the Community Manager at Libsyn, and is the founder of Podcasting School for Women.

Luria Petrucci (aka Cali Lewis) is a pioneer in the podcasting and live streaming world, known for her shows GeekBeat.TV and GeekBrief.TV, among others. Since 2005, she’s grown an audience of 2 million social followers, and has produced and hosted video & live streams for her own communities, Samsung, Panasonic, AT&T, OnStar, DISH Network, Verizon, FiOS, Bausch + Lomb, BBC Click, and more. You can find the majority of her work now on Geeks Life.

Rob Greenlee is the Head of Podcast Content at Spreaker and Adore Podcast Network. Rob was formerly with PodcastOne as EVP/CTO, and for six years was the Business Manager and Content Manager for podcasts at Microsoft Zune, Xbox and Windows Phone. Rob currently hosts the Spreaker Live Show and co-hosts the New Media Show.  He is also the former lead host of WebTalk World Radio Show; recognized as the first nationally syndicated radio program in the world to begin podcasting, on September 15th, 2004.

Wow in the World is for Curious Kids and Their Grown-Ups

~ jen

Wow in the World is a new way for families to connect, look up, and discover the wonders in the world around them. It’s the first program produced by Tinkercast, which focuses on family friendly content. Wow in the World is distributed by NPR and will mark the first children’s program the public radio network has launched in its 47-year history.

Wow in the World will launch on May 15, 2017. It is hosted by Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas. For nearly three years, Guy and Mindy co-hosted a Friday news segment on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live channel called Breakfast Blast Newscast. The segment went on to win the International New York Festivals Award for best children’s program in 2016.

Guy Raz is the award-winning host, co-creator, and editorial director of two of NPR’s most popular programs: TED Radio Hour and How I Built This. Both shows are heard by more than 14 million people each month around the world. Mindy Thomas is the Gracie Award winning host of the national, interactive Absolutely Mindy Show, heard weekday mornings on SiriusXM’s Kids Place Live Channel.

Wow in the World will take kids (and their grown-ups) on a journey into the most incredible science and kid-friendly news stories of the week. Each episode begins with a series of questions that lead to an explanation about a new amazing scientific discovery or finding. Episodes will highlight some of the most exciting new research about space, dinosaurs, animals, technology, and human origins.

Larry Wilmore has a Podcast

~ jen

Larry Wilmore was the host of “The Nightly Show”, which aired on Comedy Central. It was a spin-off of “The Daily Show”, (where Larry Wilmore was a contributor). On August 15, 2015, Comedy Central announced that “The Nightly Show” had been canceled.

Now, Larry Wilmore has a podcast. It is called Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air.  The podcast is part of The Ringer Podcast Network (which is operated as part of the Bill Simmons Media Group).

Emmy Award – winning producer, actor, and comedian Larry Wilmore is back on the air, hosting a podcast where he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the worlds of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond.

A teaser of Larry Wilmore: Black on the Air was released on May 9, 2017. The first official episode, which features Norman Lear, was released on May 11, 2017. Normal Lear was the creator of “All in the Family”, “Good Times”, “The Jeffersons”, and many other groundbreaking series. Future guests include Bernie Sanders and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Footballing Introverts Anonymous – PCN 041

~ jen

PCN iTunes artworkIn this episode, Shawn and Jen discover that there actually are audio footballing (or soccer) podcasts out there.  Who knew?  We give hope to introverts who think they couldn’t possibly do podcasting. (You can do it!). And we point out a podcast with an anonymous host who is providing a beneficial service to listeners.

Links mentioned in this episode:

* 3 Quick Ways to Improve Your Podcast Episode Titles
By Charlotte Micklewright for the Spreaker Blog

* Introverts Are Redefining Podcast and Career Stories
By Sarah Rhea Werner for Forbes

* A golden age for footballing audio
By Sidin Vadukut for Live Mint

* First Columbus Podcast Festival Celebrates A Scene On The Rise
By Clare Roth for WOSU Radio

* Meet the Podcasters Bringing Alcoholics Anonymous Into the Digital Age
By Emanuel Cavallaro for Narratively

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tor Books Announces Tor Labs – A Dramatic Podcast Imprint

~ jen

Tor Books, a leading global publisher of science fiction and fantasy, has announced Tor Labs.  It is a new imprint of Tor emphasizing experimental approaches to genre publishing, beginning with original dramatic podcasts.

Steal the Stars, the debut podcast of Tor Labs, will be released this summer. It is a science fiction audio drama that will be produced in partnership with Gideon Media. It was written by Mac Rogers, the award-winning writer of the global hit podcast thrillers, The Message and LifeAfter.

Steal the Stars is the story of Dakota Prentiss and Mat Salem, two government employees guarding the biggest secret in the world: a crashed UFO. Despite being forbidden to fraternize, Dak and Matt fall in love and decide to escape to a better life on the wings of an incredibly dangerous plan: they’re going to steal the alien body they’ve been guarding and sell the secret of its existence.

Steal the Stars will have 14 episodes that will be released weekly from August 1, 2017, through November 1, 2017. It will be available worldwide on all major podcast distributors through the Macmillan Podcast Network. The podcast will be immediately followed by a novelization of the entire serial from Tor Books, as well as an ads-free audio book of the podcast from Macmillan Audio.

Podcast Awards Relaunches with New Website

~ jen

The 12th Annual Podcast Awards has relaunched with a new website for 2017. There have been some big changes since last year, including a complete rewriting of the rules. The GoFundMe for Podcast Awards has been updated with new information.

The new rules represent the most extensive changes in the history of the Podcast Awards. The changes were made based on input from hundreds of podcasters. The goal of Podcast Awards is to make minor tweaks as they go and hope that the awards process will satisfy the majority of podcasters who have supported them over the years.

It is now possible to see a list of past winners of Podcast Awards for every year from 2005 through 2016. This is something new that has been added to the website.

There is also a list of Legacy Shows that are honored for their excellence in podcasting and who have won a Podcast Award a minimum of five times. Legacy Shows that have never won a People’s Choice Award are still eligible for that distinction and are automatically entered into the People’s Choice category (and are not required to register).

The People’s Choice top Award has been renamed to honor the Podfather of Podcasting. It is now called The Adam Curry People’s Choice Award.

The official timeline is:

  • Podcaster Registration: May 1 – July 31
  • Listener Nomination Period: July 1 – July 31
  • Slate Announcement: August 12
  • Slate Voting: August 13 – September 15
  • Awards Ceremony: September 30

Nomination Rules and Eligibility

Any show podcasting on or before July 1, 2017, with a minimum of 10 published episodes is eligible to register and be nominated for the 2017 Podcast Awards.

All registered shows will automatically be eligible to be nominated in the People’s Choice Category. Any show wishing to be eligible to be nominated can register via the registration page until the nomination closing date and pay via PayPal the $10 registration fee.

Shows that do not register are not eligible to participate. The registration fee is not-refundable.

The biggest change to the Podcast Awards is that there is no longer any daily voting by the public at large.

  • The Podcast Award Committee will invite journalists, podcast thought leaders, legacy podcasters, sponsors and individuals of the committee’s choosing to vote, not to exceed 50 participants.
  • Through random selection, 50 of the 2017 registered podcasters will be asked to review and vote with a backup pool of registered podcasters to ensure 50 podcasters cast ballots.
  • Through random selection, 250 registered listeners who volunteered to vote during registration will be asked to review and vote with a backup pool of registered listeners to ensure 250 listeners cast ballots.

Podcasters can and should provide instructions on their shows and sites instructing their audiences on how to register and nominate their podcasts. Expressly forbidden are automated programs, web assist templates that interact with the Podcast Awards site, and web overlays. No nomination tool or macro is allowed.