Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription software errors.

**Bryan Barletta:** Hey everyone, Brian Barletta here from Sounds Profitable and Podcast Movement. I’m really excited for this webinar today, and thank you so much for joining us for How and Why to Budget for Podcast Awards. in 2026. For those of you who don’t know me and don’t know Sounds Properable and podcast movement, Sounds Properable is the trade association for the podcast industry, focused on research, advocacy, and education, and networking for the whole space. We have about 210 partners as of today, and growing every single year. We’ve been in business about 5 years. And then recently I became the president of Podcast Movement, who acquired Sounds Profitable, so on top of all the fun stuff that we get to do with Sounds Profitable, we now lead Podcast Movement, which is an event series focused on bringing together creators, talent, and the business of podcasting to share ideas, make new connections, and grow every aspect of podcasting. The reason for this webinar, and I appreciate all of you joining so late into the year, I know everybody’s super busy, it’s Q4 happens every year or something, but a big reason for it is that 2026, getting ahead of 2026, is going to be a real superpower for the podcast industry. I think we’ve hit our stride on a lot of things, but planning and not doing things last minute might not be one of those strides. So, I wanted to make sure that people were aware of the events, the awards, all the interesting things coming up next year so that they can plan and budget for it. Awards are really a great example of something that’s super easy to forget until it’s last minute, and oftentimes people skip submitting for them. I think being aware of awards, the timing, the cost, the value, it allows us to build those award submissions into proposed plans for new shows, for ad campaigns, and it lets you provide value for everybody that you’re working with, or that, I guess, is working for you, flagging that to them that you’d to win an award, or even be nominated for one. To prove that point and to put our money where our mouth is, Sounds Profitable has purchased 90 total entries that we’re freely providing to the partners of Sounds Profitable. for the two advertising-focused awards that we’re sponsoring this year at the Ambi’s, and we’re also working on similar strategies with other notable awards in podcasting and advertising, so that we can support the industry overall, and help aid our partners on getting ahead and finding the value in these things. So that’s where this webinar and Pogglomerate come into it. Pogglomerate is probably one of our oldest partners, and I’ve had the chance to work with them across, so many areas. They do astounding work across production, ad sales, growth, and marketing. That last piece, marketing, is the reason why I’m on an earned panel at South by Southwest next year, and I believe they’ve been on an earned panel at South by Southwest every year that I’ve been there for podcasting. And it’s also why I started digging into this project around awards and, earned panel spots, which is something we’re gonna dig into at a future webinar. The team provides a substantial amount of information for free, and we try and highlight that through Sounds Profitable and other resources, but we’re going to be working with them hand-in-hand to amplify that further, both for our partners and both through the general readers of Sounds Profitable and attendees of Podcast Movement. The big thing I do want to highlight is that one of the really impressive things is that they also provide services for those looking to navigate the submission process. As someone who’s personally tapped out of handling the South by Southwest submission process, that panel picker process, and passed it to other people on the team. I, I highly, highly recommend evaluating your time, capacity, and frustration limit to navigate that stuff. So, with all of that said, I’m going to pass this over to Joni from the Pogglomerate, who’s going to walk through the rest of the webinar, and I’m going to be staying on to help with some Q&A at the end. If you have any questions, you absolutely can post them in the chat and whatnot, but I highly recommend using the QA feature, and saving them towards the end, because we’d love to hear from you and help support you.

**Joni Deutsch:** Brian, thank you so much for being a great partner, and everyone here, thank you so much for joining us on this Thursday, wherever you are in the world. As Brian mentioned, my name’s Joni Deutsch. I am the Senior Vice President for Marketing and Audience Development at the Podglomerate. I’ve been here for about 4 years, but truth be told, I’ve been working in audio and radio for 15 years total. Some of that was in public media and in PR and in PR music, and for the last few years, I’ve proudly been at the Podglomerate And as Brian mentioned, for those who may not be aware of what we do, the Pogglomerate, we’re an award-winning podcast services firm. In fact, we just won an award, speaking of awards, this past year as the best podcast marketing production agency by PR Daily. We’re proud of the work we do. We represent a wide variety of shows for production purposes, monetization and ad sales purposes, as well as marketing audience growth, which is the department that I also oversee. And our clients range from public media, including NPR, PBS, and member stations across the nation. to for-profit entities, institutions, universities, and independent podcasters. So from my personal experience, being on the production marketing side of shows, to now overseeing campaigns on behalf of those shows. I have a lot of experience to be able to share today. I also have the same experience when it comes to, being on both sides of the awards question. What does it take to win an award? And also, what do jurors look for? Over the last 15 years, I’ve been a juror for a number of major media, journalism, and audio competitions, from the Ambi Awards to the Online News Association’s OJAs, Online Journalism Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Gracies, the Webbies. The list goes on. It’s a lot to take in. So, today, what we’re going to be doing is diving into this topic, which I know you all probably have different feelings and thoughts about. In fact, I would encourage you to put an introduction for yourself in the Zoom chat today. who you are, where you’re zooming in from, what podcast, audio, media work you do, and also what questions you may have. And not just questions, maybe concerns. Podcast awards are… their own entity, and I know we have some friendly faces in the crowd today that come directly from some of the podcast competitions that we’re chatting about. So I would just encourage everyone here, be open to the conversation. If you have concerns, if you have highlights, if you have success stories, bring them here, and at the Q&A at the end, we’ll also talk about it further. But my goal today, in the 30, 40-some minutes we have together before the Q&A hits, is to dive into this topic with you further, and explain how we, myself personally, and we at the Pogglomerate, have been able to use Podcast Awards as an engine for growth. and growth in a number of ways. We’re also going to talk about the key awards, and there’s a long list of awards out there. We’re not going to get through all of them today. I’ll have a resource guide for you later if you want to explore that further on your own time. But we’re gonna walk through some of the key awards and success rates, in general terms. for the year of 2026. So that way you can plot out your budget for the new year for award submissions, on average, and also, what are key considerations that may be more applicable to you if you’re in a certain type of audio work compared to someone else on this call. And at the end of the day, I want you to come equipped and walk away from this conversation knowing what is feasible for you, what is reasonable for you, and should you want further assistance, we’ll provide some resources as well. And be sure to stay at the very end, we, in addition to having the audience Q&A, we’ll also have a special gift from the podgomerate to help you on your path to potentially winning an award. So, with that said, let’s go ahead and get started. So, big question. Why even bother podcast awards? What good will they do for you? How can they help you grow in any number of ways? And at the end of the day, I would just say to everyone here, it really depends on what your goals are. Just with your podcast, right? Is your goal for your podcast and producing and making it that you want to reach a marginalized community, or uplift voices, or monetize and create a full-time career? the list is endless. And the same thing applies to what your goal should be when it comes to podcast awards, recognition, nominations, and the. At the end of the day, it could be a vanity metric. As you can probably see behind me, I have some little items from my years of winning awards on behalf of shows I’ve represented or even hosted. That’s wonderful. They make for wonderful bookshelf fodder. But maybe your goal of getting an award is that you want to utilize it to be able to help grow your audience further, or monetize and generate revenue further, or produce even more content. I would just bear that in mind as you’re thinking through how you’re going to budget for this in the new year, because maybe the $200 you spend here could quadruple in the return on investment you get following an award nomination or win. It is not one size fits all. I’m not saying everyone on this call should, or can apply for awards, but at the very least, you’re going to go into this process knowing what is feasible and, does it really make sense this year, or maybe wait until next year, even 2027. So, again, podcast awards can offer a number of benefits, and whether you become a nominee, a finalist, or a winner. Entering a podcast awards competition can do a number of things. It can enhance your visibility in the space, whatever space you’re in. Nonprofit, journalism, marketing, list goes on. It can build your credibility, and it can also just showcase expertise. So here are some very specific examples of how podcast award can help, basing this off of what we have personally seen with our representation of clients who have become either award-nominated or award-winning. So, first off, it’s being able to attract bigger, more prominent guest bookings for your show. If you are the host or producer of your show, or guest booker, and you’re sending out pitches to celebrities, politicians, the list goes on, you have certain talking points about your show, right? What you do, what you do well, why you want to talk to them. Being able to incorporate a line of text in there to say that you are… you recently were nominated for Best News Podcast alongside shows from Bloomberg, NPR, and Wall Street Journal. That’s pretty impressive, and that’s likely going to encourage more of an open rate for your email, or a response rate as compared to before, when maybe you didn’t have that moniker of award-winning or award-nominated. The crowd attracts a crowd, right? The old motto goes. Another way that an award, nomination, or win, either way, can help you, is just simply with revenue growth, monetization, and ad sales. If you are bringing a pitch deck to a grant funder, an investor, ad sales or advertiser, or even maybe a larger effort, maybe a network for distribution, if you’re looking to one of the largest, more prestigious publishers in the space. Being able to say that you are recognized with, either a regional award, a national award, an international award. That could make the difference in them hearing your pitch and wanting to do something larger with you. So, the small amount of investment you’re putting into this now could lead to something larger down the line. And that’s not even including paid subscribers. We have a client that we represented who won… of the 13 awards we submitted them for, they won about half of those awards, some in very prestigious categories. And in the process of all those campaigns for awards, and the wins, and the nominations, and announcements. They did see paid subscribers, people who paid for content on their platform, increase, along with newsletter subscribers, along with people that are coming to their website. Words are just one of many tactics to use to be able to help grow your show, along with publicity measures, cross-promotions, the things go on, but… It is valuable. It can be valuable, so long as how to utilize it. At the end of the day, if you win an award, but you don’t do anything about it, you don’t announce it, you don’t incorporate it into your materials, your SEO potential, is it really doing you good at the end of the day? So that brings up the next note. Awards are a great vehicle for simply more media exposure. There are some podcast apps, in fact, that Depending on the award, they have great, working relationships with some awards competitions, where if you win an award, that podcast app might feature your show in their collection, on or after the awards announcement is made. So, when you get an award, I would encourage you all, or a nomination even, I would encourage you all to immediately put it into whatever you have at your disposal for promotional consideration. Your pitches, your ability to put it in your SEO, so your metadata for your website, your social media, whatever the case may be. Because that could lead to more exposure to your show, which leads to more audience, which leads to more monetization. The list goes on and on. And then, bare minimum, if you don’t care for any of that, just know that you’re in a category, if you get nominated or win, with likely other shows or other networks and publishers that you should probably stay in touch with. If you’re in a category that also includes iHeart, Amazon, Audible, NPR, whatever the network or show or host is. I would encourage you to use that opportunity to find a way to connect with them, as simple as you reaching out on LinkedIn or an email to say, hey, we’re both nominated in the same category, or hey, congrats, you won, I was nominated, I would love to stay in touch and see if we can collaborate, because we’re obviously in the same line of work, and we do the same, have the same mission or goal. Those conversations can sprout into something much larger, whether that’s cross-promotional efforts, editorial collaborations. Who knows? So, again, if you’re not doing any of this, and you previously have won a podcast or were nominated for a podcast in the past. This could be the difference of how you can leverage that win or nomination to do more good for yourself and your podcast at the end of the day. And the larger note here is that At the end of the day, there are millions of podcasts in the world. the majority of them can’t say they’re nominated or award-winning, so you should absolutely use that as part of your unique selling proposition, your USP for your show, and your show’s goals and audience. These are a list of ideas of how you can incorporate it. I’ve mentioned some of them in the previous slide. The sky’s the limit, though, so just know that you put an effort into this thing. It shouldn’t be a one and done. You should immediately put it into the vehicle, the wheel, of how you’re going to be able to spur more action and activity towards what you do. So, now we’re going to talk about what, some of the key awards are, and also, at the end of the day, costs. Because I know you all are probably thinking, it costs a lot of money to enter awards, and you’re not wrong. There are some awards out there that do cost more than others. And I also want to acknowledge that some might have a higher success rate of getting, you nominated or winning an award in their categories for various reasons. So I’m going to dive into that a little bit more, and that way we can chat through What might be feasible, given the various types of shows that are represented on today’s call, versus ones where maybe you should avoid that award and focus more of your energy and your budget on another specific one. And for background, the Pyglomerate has a database of more than 60 awards competitions, and within those 60 awards, there are a thousand categories across them. And they range significantly, from prestigious journalism and entertainment media awards to marketing or live events awards, research, nonprofit, all that have something to do with podcasting at the end of the day. And as you all saw, the Golden Globes and the announcements this week of the nominations for 2025, More awards are getting into the habit of including podcasts in their offerings. So, if anything, I’d also hope that you all can take away from this conversation that if there is a line of work that you’re in, or a type of show or genre that you’re doing. You should keep tabs on the awards that Currently, are in that line of work, but may not have a podcast category as of yet. I would wager that they will probably include a podcast category in the near future because of The era of audio and podcasting that we find ourselves in right now. And if you are looking for that comprehensive list of go-to awards I mentioned, the 60, because we’re not doing 60 today, we’re doing, 12 or 15, make sure to follow the Pogglomer on LinkedIn, and we’ll be sharing that as soon as it goes live in the new year. Until then, here’s the shortlist of awards that I would, to dive into with you, with details, estimated cost, and also potential, I’m not saying they’re guaranteed, but potential rates of success. So we’re gonna start at different categories, the first category being journalism awards that honor podcasts. So awards that maybe are a little bit more news and digital media focused, or journalism focused, but they do have categories specific to podcasts and on-demand audio. So the DuPont Columbia Journalism Award is perhaps one of the highest standards and highest recognitions of journalism in the space when it comes to recognition. They honor them every year, they … I got a note that they’ve already picked their finalists or their winners for 2026, from the 2025 entry period, so we should be seeing the announcement of that in the coming weeks, stay tuned. I put the success rate here as low for being able to win, just because it is… It is highly competitive. The only shows that they’re really considering are those that are directly from the journalism space, and truly are ones that have direct impact on communities or the larger ecosystem of society. We have been honored that one of our clients, New Hampshire Public Radio’s The 13th Step, has been, recognized or honored by the DuPont Columbia Awards. But that isn’t the case for every news or investigative series out there. So, if you find yourself in that specific space, I would encourage you to look at what the past entrants have been for it, and see if… you find yourself to be in line with those that have won or been honored in the past, and if you do, then entry-wise, it’s $150 usually for the entry, so long as you meet the deadline. That could be one that you look into in the new year, when it opens up in July. The Online Journalism Awards is one that I’ve been attached to for many years, including as a judge. Similar to the DuPont, I would say a little bit less prestigious, though, but they do have more, opportunities for recognizing on-demand audio. In fact, the reason I put medium as success rate is that They have a few different categories that are based off of the type of organization you’re in, or how small of an operation you are. So, from small, independent, to large. So that way you’re not competing directly with NPR if perhaps you aren’t 100 employees or 1,000 employees on your podcast. So with that variation, that gives you a bit of more of a competitive advantage, where you find the category that really fits to what you do and isn’t inundated with a thousand celebrity shows or news shows that are, top of the charts. And the entry fee is only $50, so all said and done, if you work in this line of podcasting, not a bad one to look into further. All right, we’re gonna look into entertainment digital media awards next. So, these are ones where they are typically focused on some combination of maybe arts and culture, entertainment, Hollywood, but they also have broader implications, so digital media being really anything that touches the web. So podcasts, I understand, are already going to be on the web, but think of it more so in the sense of., any element relevant to, digital media, podcasts can be involved in that, too. So, the Peabody Awards are one of the top ones, for recognition. I would say the success rate for getting, recognized in it is… I would say low, maybe optimistically medium, only because if you look at the Peabody Awards and who has been recognized over the years, especially in the podcast space. They do tend to be higher publishers, bigger publishers, celebrities. The Peabody’s recognized more than just audio or podcasting, they also recognize television, children’s programming, lots of things that would go in line with pop culture. Or documentary-style filmmaking. So, bear that in mind, that, you may have a chance of it, but look at the list of entrants or honorees in the past and see if you can easily imagine yourself being there, or making the case for yourself being there. And the price point for it is… heavier, steeper, if you will. So, something to look into, but the Peabody Awards are still open for another week, so if you really want to put in your best effort in the next week or so, I’d encourage you to look into it further. The Web Awards. They are probably one of the highest success rates listed in today’s presentation. For those of you who may not know, the Webby Awards are considered the internet’s highest honor by the New York Times. They’ve been around for quite some time. They are part of an umbrella of podcast awards, or media awards, I should say, that honor podcasts. We’ll cover a few of the other ones in a bit. The Webby Awards, they span a wide variety of categories. If you do short-form video, or social media, or, ad campaigns, or apps. the list goes on and on and on. So the reason I put success rate being high, and bind you, anything I put here is success rate, I am not saying 100% guarantee you are gonna get something. What I’m saying is that from the Podglomerate’s track record. There is a higher chance or a lower chance of us doing this or getting an award nomination or recognition. Simply because we are strategic with how we place our clients. In the case of the Webby Awards, we have a higher success rate because we do look at the very specific categories. In the case of the podcast categories. They range, in bulk groupings from limited-run series to very specific niche ones of, best episode for fantasy, things that. So knowing that probably less people are going to be submitting to best episode versus people who are submitting for Best Show. Or they may be submitting for Best Host. That’s the clarification that you can get, simply by looking at past winners or honorees, and seeing, given what of 2025 in podcasting. what are the likely culprits that are going to go in for the bigger categories, and you want to avoid them entirely. For instance, I probably wouldn’t want to go up against Amy Poehler at this time because of her hit podcast, Good Hang. And whatever categories I think she would be in are probably the ones I would avoid being in. And I would try to go to ones that are off the beaten path, if you will. Alright, next round. Still in the same category of Entertainment Digital Media Awards that honor podcasts. The New York Festival’s Radio Awards, bit of a misnomer, because while it says Radio Awards in the title, they honor radio and podcasts, so really any audio. So in this case, there are some that are focused on genres of, news or journalism, arts and culture, nonprofit, so you can find one that fits you. I’m not saying it’s high in the sense of, you’re always going to come out of it with an award or recognition, but I will say, compared to some of the others on this list, we’ve had a very good track record of the New York Festival Radio Awards. And in addition to that, they also recognize the National Press Club Award as part of their, possible honorees. That one is only given out to one institution or one show every year. In the past few years, it’s been given out to, the BBC and the Boston Globe, and we had an independent podcast news operation. So definitely not to the same degree as those two outlets who won that this year, based off the merits of their show. The judges put the time in to review it. It’s more intensive as a juror, I would say, compared to some of the other awards on this list. So, this one is one I would encourage, especially if you are an independent podcaster, to look into. Because I think you do get more out of this one, in some ways. The Gracie Awards is very, specific. It is one that is honoring programming and podcasts that are created by women, for women, and about women. So, if you find yourselves, self-identifying as such. then this is one that I would specifically look to. And also the different categories. If you are local, national programming, if you’re a student, they also have student categories, which is excellent. And they also have, some scholarships available to offset the cost. So that way, if you’re wanting to put in, and whether it’s $50 to $325, depending on the category or the time of year you submit. I always encourage everyone to submit on deadline, so early bird deadline is always the best. You could still try to go for a scholarship to offset that cost. Still finishing up this category, the Golden Globes we’ve already talked about, but I’ll just briefly say that, this is the first year the Golden Globes are having podcast categories in the mix. Previously it was simply just television and film, more or less. So, while we do not have personal experience with submitting for the Golden Globes. We’ll be curious to see how it transforms or evolves over the years. As it stands, for the 2025 entry period, it was $500, and in case you all did not see, the, 6 shows that did move forward with becoming nominees at this point, haven’t announced the winners. Are practically all shows that have a celebrity attached to them, excluding Mel Robbins and NPR’s Up First. So… this is one where I probably would advise the bulk of you, you may not fit into this category to submit. That may change in the coming years, but their process is a little different than a lot of the other awards that I’ve listed here today. And the Shorty Awards, also in the same umbrella as the Webbies and a few others, they are ones that honor, specifically, digital and social media, related entities. And podcasts are included in the mix. Again, because of the number of categories that awards the Webby’s and the Shorty Awards provide as options for entry. it does increase the ability for someone to get an honoree or a nomination or a win from it, because of just so many opportunities. So that’s why we have the success rate being higher here compared to the Golden Globes, where Golden Globes is very selective. Alright, and then for our final category sorts, which is the one I think a lot of you are most interested in. It’s simply the list or short list of podcast awards that honor podcasts. So, at the end of the day, the bread and butter is podcasting. They don’t do a ton of categories that differ from audio, it is simply anything on this list is related to the art or the support of podcasting as an industry and audio as a genre. Or as a medium. So, the Ambi Awards. The Ambi Awards are, the annual event that are presented by the Podcast Academy, the TPA. They’re a membership, organization, so if you aren’t aware of them, I would encourage you to check them out. They have events, they have webinars. Anyways, they also present the Ambies. The… they have a few different categories. I believe off the top of my head, it’s 30 categories total. That range from best genre of shows to even some more talent-specific ones, and as Brian Barletta mentioned at the top of this call, for those who missed it, they also have just added in ad-specific categories, so best podcast ad, if you will. So the Ambi Awards, while they do have, 30 or some categories. I would say the success rate for them is medium in order to get a nomination or win. Only because, they don’t really split those categories out into specific parts, limited, limited run, or, short form, or, episode-specific content. It’s really just based off of the show at large, or the host at large. So just know that if you’re putting in for Best Spirituality Wellness Genre Podcast, you are competing against any number of shows out there, whether they are limited-run series, weekly series, bi-weekly, celebrity podcasts that are all vying for the same title. But… Compared to the webbies, where I believe they do receive many, many, many more, entrants. I don’t think the Emmys have gotten to that point yet. So, you can try your hand at it and see if you’re able to get to the nomination phase, at least. The iHeart Podcast Awards, this is the first year, in fact, that they are opening it up for the public to submit and enter into. Prior to this year, it was more of a closed process, where internally at iHeart, they would determine who would be best fit as nominations, and still aren’t really sure what the process was internally, although you can probably guess a lot of the shows nominated for the iHeartPodcast Awards in the past were, in fact, iHeartPodcast. So we’ll see what 2026 will be when they do announce the nominees, likely the beginning of next year. But there was no cost for submitting. Sadly, the entry period just closed last week, otherwise I would encourage everyone here to submit immediately. So we’ll see who goes into it. I don’t know the judging process either, if it’s simply iHeart individuals or people across the industry outside of iHeart. But when the awards are announced, or the nominees, at least we’ll get a sense of what the likelihood is. For now, I’ve just simply put it at medium, and when an entry is free, I don’t think there’s much risk for you to try to submit for it. And then the final two I have listed here, two of which I believe we have people on the call today that are joining us from these respective organizations. The Signal Awards, which have been around for a few years at this point, likewise for the Black Podcasting Awards. Different entry fees, one is a little bit steeper than the other, but the Signal Awards do have And Gemma from the Signal Awards, who’s here with us, I think can chime in in the Zoom chat as to the exact number of categories that the Signal has, and they continue to grow and iterate off of it, based off feedback from the audience. If you are wanting something super specific to what you do, and it’s something super specific where it makes it even more, more opportunity for you to potentially be recognized in that category, the Signal Words would have you covered. They fully are devoted to supporting and elevating all the different elements of podcasts in that way. And the Black Podcasting Awards, very similar to the Gracie Awards, they are honoring a Black podcast for Black podcasters, by Black podcasters, and the network and community involved. So, for both of these, different in some ways, similar in others with the categories. And the entry periods also change. So now you’re probably thinking, you just gave me a lot of numbers, Joni, what does that mean for me? So let me talk you through that. Obviously, podcast awards vary in cost. From free, which I think, to be transparent, the only one that was truly free on this list was the iHeart Podcast Awards one. to a single entry, potentially costing upwards of $500. That’s assuming that you are super late with your entry period, so you’re past the regular deadline, and so there’s an additional cost involved, but… Either way, it can be expensive simply for one entry, one submission. And if you’re interested in many categories, because maybe you do a history and news podcast, and it’s long-form or limited-run series, you could easily apply to any number of genres that are relevant to you, not including best host, Best Sound Design, Best Theme Music, list goes on. So, here’s what I would say to you if you’re thinking, how do I even budget? Is this worth even money?, can I, decrease the cost of this if I’m interested? The first thing is, I would just want you to think through, what is the thing that you really want to position your show around, given relevance to the category and your overall goals? So, I would not want you to submit for best true crime if you don’t do a best true crime show, right? If you don’t do true crime at all or investigative storytelling, don’t hit that genre. I know that sounds obvious, but, when you look at some of the category tags, if you find yourself thinking it’s a stretch to call yourself that, even though maybe on Apple Podcasts that’s how you’ve tagged yourself. Probably shouldn’t do it. But if you produce an investigative podcast, then I would encourage you to think through what are the awards that truly cater towards that genre, maybe in the journalism category, maybe limited run series, if that’s what you do. And are your goals to position your show as the best in the genre? Or position your script writing, because some of these categories do have best scriptwriting involved. Or best ads, or best host, or best reporting. Once exactly what you’d to be able to go towards, because that can help strengthen your pitch for what you do well and why people should support it, then you can get a sense of what are these categories that you should budget for. And then also for budgeting, there are scholarships and discounts available. So if you cannot, think of your budget, you’re thinking, $100, maybe I can do that, but if I want to submit for more, I can’t do that right now. There’s a few things to consider. The Podcast Academy and Sounds Profitable, as mentioned, both provide discounts, if you are a member or a partner in either of these organizations, so you can look into it that way. Podcasting Seriously, which is a fund that has been created to support BIPOC podcasters. Is a great resource if you find yourself self-identifying as that. And some awards either provide a non-profit discount, or even a student discount for entry fees. You just need to look at their entry qualifications, in their discount section to see if you… you fit in those. And obviously, I would encourage everyone here, know what the deadlines are for these submissions, and know in advance, because if you go to the early bird deadline, that’s going to cost you less money than you waited until the last minute, and it’s still open, but it’s now $300 more than what the base entry fee was. So, I guess at the end of the day, the biggest question for you is how much do you want to win an award? Because if you really want to have something on your mantle, or really want to have something saying that you are award-nominated or winning, then that should drive your answer, and how much you should be able to accommodate for that. And maybe for 2026? Enter into one or two awards. And then if you win, maybe think of that from the perspective of, I won one, maybe the next year you can account for another budget line item for another submission, if it works out. Based on the conglomerate’s past experience with submitting awards on behalf of our clients, as that is something that we do, most of our award submission clients, they range from 2 to 6 entries per calendar year that we’re handling on their behalf. And the average base entry cost for a single submission is usually $275. That’s, again, if we go and submit it in the early bird period where it’s at its cheapest rate. So, with those notes in mind, the average podcast awards budget for a single show, if you are proceeding with two entries, or six entries, I would encourage you to budget for $550 upwards to $1,650 for one show alone. If you happen to come from a network, or if you have multiple shows that you’re working on simultaneously as an independent podcaster, you may want to just double that, triple it, however many shows that you’re thinking of positioning for recognition. So again, if you’re an independent or up-and-coming podcaster, maybe just try for one submission, and see how it works out. But if you’re a bigger publisher with bigger pockets, maybe increase that totally. And just as a reference point, there was the nonprofit news network I mentioned that is very independent. That we represented over the last year, so we submitted 13 entries for them, for their documentary news politics history podcast, and of those, half of the entries received nominations and wins, including in prestigious journalism awards. So… Sometimes, you just need to put in more entries or more categories in order to win more. But you won’t know until you try. So now we’re gonna get into the Q&A, and I see that we have a very active chat, so Brian, I would love to see what you think is gonna be, the first question we pull out to address. But before we do, just as a reminder, the Pglomerate is here to help, not just with marketing and production and ad sales questions, but also for today’s topic of awards. And we have a great track record because of insights from judges myself, who’ve previously seen these awards, to also winning them on behalf of our clients or ourselves. that we bring to the table to help support our clients. So, if you are interested, we have a discount that we’re offering, so if you want to utilize our services for awards, you can use the QR code on your screen, scan it, it’ll take you to our website, fill in your information, not credit card, just fill in, what do you want to do? What ideas do you have? What show are you thinking of that would be useful for, for an award? And then we’ll get back in touch with you, if not in next week, then early January, to see what we can do together to support your growth. Alright, with that said, Brian, what are the big questions that everyone’s asking in the Zoom chat?

**Bryan Barletta:** , what’s really neat here is, you highlighted, there are people here from some of the awards that you called out, and they’ve answered a lot of the questions in the chat, which is really, really exciting. I’m very, very thankful for that. One person did ask if the list would be made available afterwards, and how they would get access to that.

**Joni Deutsch:** Yeah, absolutely. So we are going to be posting a, pretty comprehensive, even more than today’s list, on our website, which is thepuckwalmart.com. After today’s call, everyone here who registered will be receiving an email with resources and a way to stay in touch with us, so when we do publish that list that’s more comprehensive, you will have access to it. It’ll likely go up in the new year, though, in the first few weeks of January, so stay tuned. But at the very least, if you’re asking about today’s presentation, which is, I think, what, 10, 12 total? Everyone who registered will be receiving a link to this recording after today’s meeting, likely by Friday this week. So at least you’ll have something more immediately in hand that you can use.

**Bryan Barletta:** And then we got another one from Holly, talking about how her podcast is only 3 months old, and she’s doing weekly. Would it make business sense to submit for an award? And one of the things I’d to highlight before passing over to you, Joni, is that the EMBs is closed now for submissions for this year. Through the advertising ones that we’re doing for our partners, we’ve gotten an extension on those, because we bought in bulk on that end. But Gemma highlighted that March is when, the Signal Awards will be opening up. So, I think that thinking about today at 3 months, Holly, might be a little bit different from when submissions open, and then not even that when nominations are named, and then when voting happens, all of those things. So, I think that, you probably have a little bit more time.

**Joni Deutsch:** Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think, bear in mind, and I’m saying from my perspective as a juror on a number of these. If the deadline for you to submit your show… at that point, maybe you only have a 3-month-old show, or a week-old show, even, it usually takes a few months after that final deadline for jurors to start reviewing items, and they have different rounds of it, and different tiers of reviewing. And then for the nominations to go out, and then even at that point, there might be, a public voting round for the public to get in to show, the people’s choice. So by that point, you probably have more episodes in the feed, or bigger guest names, or whatever the case may be. So I would just encourage you to look at the, entry qualifications. Usually they will tell you exactly if, you fall within the range that could be applicable to that year’s, contest or awards competition. Most of them, the entry period is, the full calendar year, so so long as you publish at least one piece of audio in your feed between usually January 1st to December 31st. you can qualify. But there’s some nuances, not everyone’s, the same, so I just look at that and see. But if you really feel strong about your work, if you feel it was excellent, it was eye-catching, if you present this to a judge who has no idea what this is, that they’re going to find Some level of criteria that they will, put you up higher for it. Why not? If you have the budget for it, I’d say go for it. If you want to wait until next year, though, where you feel you’re in stronger shape, wait it out.

**Bryan Barletta:** And I would say on that, most of my voting has been…, I have been a judge on Signal Awards and other things, but a lot of mine has been in the advertising side, and what I can say on those, for those sides is people don’t tend to follow directions. submitting for these awards, so as a judge, sometimes I’m just… we have to skip over people simply because they didn’t follow it, so the pool’s even smaller of people on there. And, when you’re buying a house or a job application, sometimes that personal note at the beginning to the judge, being, hey, this is why I think I fit for this,, this is what… why it matters, I’ve created this, not only is here my submission here, but I’ve also created a little highlight reel. Give them something else to dig into. and be a person on it. I think that that works really well. But, echoing with some of the questions on here as well, do you need a certain number of episodes, or downloads, or anything that, and I think the answer’s no, it’s just without, what are you gonna do with the award? And if it just means something to you, that’s super okay., that’s super okay on there. One I really do want to highlight is from Brendan over at Locked On. They have 210 shows on their network, and they’re all unique. As a network, because they do publish all of them there, how, from a budget perspective, do you make the decision on which ones to submit, or should they be exploring worlds where they submit all of them?

**Joni Deutsch:** Oh, great question. And also, I want to give a shout out. Not only is Gemma from the Signal Awards here today, Demetrius from the Black Podcasting Awards, and I’ve just been scrolling through the Zoom chat. Thank you both for all the input you’re sharing. For anyone who hasn’t looked at the Zoom chat, I would encourage you to do so. There’s some really great insights and notes from them, and their recommendations are invaluable. So, to your questions, Brian, first I just want to address, the idea about downloads. There… And I’ve been a judge on a lot of these competitions. They do not mandate that you share your downloads with them. a good bulk of these podcast awards, they are simply just asking you for the basics. The basics of what is the title of your show, or the title of your episode, or the name of your host or production team, if you have one, the link to your show, the audio, potentially, if you want to upload it, and.

**Bryan Barletta:** Why you’re eligible?

**Joni Deutsch:** Yes, that’s it.

**Bryan Barletta:** That’s it, yeah.

**Joni Deutsch:** That’s it., they’re not asking for download… they’re not asking you for episode downloads or monthly downloads. They may not even have a space in their submission form for you to put in qualifying context of, I’m a chart-topping, award-winning show with 10 million downloads, and I’ve been at South by Southwest with a live taping. They may not even have that. So, Again, when you go to the websites of these awards, they will tell you what they are looking for, or what the criteria is of, submitting their forms, so you can do some research in advance, do your homework. if they give you the opportunity to provide context, the Gracie Awards do request that you submit, 200 to upwards of a thousand words about why the show is for, by, and, with women at the heart of it. So yes, you should absolutely emphasize, why your show matters, what impact it’s had, metrics that you feel comfortable sharing internally with our jurors to review. But really, at the end of the day, you should focus on the quality of your content and the relevance of the category as the basis of your submission period. Now, Brian, your question, though, was about locked-on podcast.

**Bryan Barletta:** 210 shows, yeah.

**Joni Deutsch:** , look, I’m not saying you should submit every single one of those for various reasons., for instance, there’s 210 shows, how many of them are active? How many of them did, in fact, release episodes in the qualifying period?

**Bryan Barletta:** Theirs are mostly always on about sports. This is an interesting one on there, right? Because now it’s regional, right? They’re spread out, they have a specific reason on here.

**Joni Deutsch:** Yep, there… again, with sports podcasts, you will likely find a genre that is relevant to that specific, best sports podcast category title, but you may also want to look at specific ones, best episode, or best,. the Signals is a great example of this, or even the webbies, where they break out best episode in different ways. So, maybe best driveway moment, best co-host conversation, best what have you. But… maybe focus on the quality of content for Locked on, or whatever major network you’re on. So that way, you’re looking at what are the top shows, or the ones that are going to be eye-catching.

**Bryan Barletta:** Yeah. Frankly.

**Joni Deutsch:** for judges, I do review everything I have. Unless I need to recuse myself. That includes listening fully to what is provided to me. Some judges, there’s not really a mandatory way that a judge has to listen to 100% completion of whatever they’re provided. So, in the first 5 minutes of whatever episode or show you out there are entering in through that submission form. You need to make sure it’s quality, and you need to make sure it really is representative of what the show is and why it deserves to be nominated or recognized. So for Lockdown Podcasts, if you confidently feel you can do that for 210 shows, amazing. But maybe just focus on the ones that you want to position for your own benefit and goals. If it’s growth, ad sales, chart-topping, audience growth, whatever the case may be.

**Bryan Barletta:** And I think that this is where a lot of my thoughts come on, are related to planning for the year. So, Brendan, my advice for things this, and other networks this, is make a decision on what awards Locked On wants to win, want to be a part of on that end, and plan those out. Make a decision on how many you’re willing to submit for. Maybe it’s 5, maybe it’s 10. And then work with all of your shows and say, here are the awards and their due dates that we’re planning to submit for. We are looking for all of you to find your best and most interesting things of those shows, or work towards building that? Can you take that swing on bringing that guest on there, or doing that investigative section, or mini-series that you’ve been working on, or ideating on?, can we pull in an advertiser and pitch a unique campaign? So that Locked On knows it’s gonna submit 5, and you have the option to work with those 210 for how they tell you I guess, sadly, as, a child fighting for their parents’ love, and a terrible example there. But, have them… you’re doing your mini awards on that end. Which ones are you going to be getting to, argue out, to justify which ones get that submission?

**Joni Deutsch:** Yep, agreed. And maybe you… you put that on the plate of the producers and hosts of those shows, right?

**Bryan Barletta:** Exactly.

**Joni Deutsch:** If you’re the person that’s, in my case, it’s me and my marketing team that are the ones bringing to the table for our clients, hey, you approved our budget for this, we want to put in for this, and we would recommend this specific category and this piece of audio to go along with the entry form. We do that. Maybe you don’t need to be the one to do that within your organization, maybe you just bring up the ideas, you offer the opportunity, and you say, hey, I have budget for 5, and for the 210 shows and producers hosted network. I’m giving you the opportunity to send to me what you think is best representative of what you do well, and then I will make the final determination. Maybe that’s not the best way to do it, mileage may vary. Brian, what other big questions, or even the ones that you’ve been thinking about, that would be good for the… how much time do we have left? We have about 10 minutes left before the top of the hour.

**Bryan Barletta:** I think that this was really great., ultimately, we’re seeing the right questions on here. People are asking about size and all of that.

**Joni Deutsch:** I think that it’s.

**Bryan Barletta:** really, really important to highlight to people that, it really depends on your intent on there. Dimitri shared some, minimums on number of episodes and whatnot for how they’re handling it. Gemma shared some information on that. So it’s just looking at the criteria. But I think that,. you… what’s really neat is, you highlighted, I don’t think I’ve ever been aware of someone’s downloads or how big it is. I think that,, if they give you the YouTube and you click over, you can see how many views it is. If you decide to view it in Spotify, you can see how many plays there are, if they’re over that cap, and that’s interesting there. But it’s never factored in for the award. These awards aren’t the most downloaded., in that scenario, you could buy traffic and win that award, and that’s just math. You don’t need to to judge it. This is finding people, the judges that these people pick are supposed to be representative of the body of both the industry and of both listeners, and you’re trying to appeal to them. So I think that that’s the big thing there, is that,. almost everybody who’s on this webinar is eligible to submit to some or most of these awards. The question becomes, is that amount of money something that is where, is that where you should be spending it at this time? The answer might be no, but how do you build it into your pitches, right? How do you build into your proposals for what’s next? How do you get that guest that you’ve been looking for on there and say, I would to, come on the show and we’ll submit it for an award? reward. The same with an advertiser, all of these things. I think that that’s really smart and strategic, because then you’re not looking at, well, I paid to submit And now, what do I do with this? You’re looking at, I paid… this is marketing, this is helping grow, this is creating another connection. But I think we… I nailed most of the questions. I’m seeing, the conversations on here are great. I really recommend people to take a moment, capture everybody’s name on here, find each other on LinkedIn. I’m really, really impressed and proud of the conversations in the chat here. Demetrius, as well, Gemma listed her information for contact Demetrius if you want to list your… your information in there as well, as two, great representatives of the awards community., we’re working to figure out how to sponsor something with the Signal Awards. We’ve been a long-time sponsor of, the Black Podcast Awards, and we continue and plan to do that, because all of these things are valuable, they matter, and it shows the value by these people showing up, by coming to. These webinars and supporting the people looking to be more active in it.

**Joni Deutsch:** Yeah, and credit to Sounds Profitable, we’ve… done a number of things with them over the years, this being the most recent example, and also to, again, everyone joining us today, there’s a lot of resources we provided here. You will be getting a recording of today’s webinar in your email inbox in the next few days, along with some other resources and links to relevant marketing, audience growth and awards topics. I put my LinkedIn in the chat. You are welcome to connect with me out there, wherever you are. And if you have any questions as well that maybe we didn’t address today, or maybe you just wanted to separately send, I’ll share a link, and you can put in an email to me as well there. But again, thank you for everyone joining us today. Hopefully this was beneficial for you, whether or not you do proceed with awards in the new year, maybe it’ll at least give you some inspiration of things that, you can look towards in other ways. And Brian, thank you so much for also moderating and hosting, too.

**Bryan Barletta:** And if you guys submit awards because of this webinar, Joni and I want to hear about it, right? Yes., we absolutely want to hear about it, and we want to figure out how we can help you more, and highlight that you took a swing because of learning a little bit more.

**Joni Deutsch:** Yes, absolutely. Well, until then, everyone, I’ll put a link in the chat for contact in case you want to get in touch with me later. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, and stay safe out there, and have fun with all your podcasting endeavors.

**Bryan Barletta:** Bye, everyone.

**Joni Deutsch:** Thanks, everyone!