The Making of an Award Winning Podcast

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

Jemma: We're gonna do something a little unconventional, but truly in the spirit of the medium that we all, uh, have rallied around here. We're gonna start out this session listening to a little bit of audio to locate us in the work that we're gonna be discussing.

So let's cue up the first clip and just sit down and take a listen.

David: They began arriving at Dulles International Airport on the edge of Washington, dc. It was springtime in the nation's capitol. Those guys arriving at the airport were carrying bags. Briefcases, satchels, attache cases were popular, and their bags were filled with money.

Literally stuffed with cash. Lots of cash from the airport. They drive directly to the same place, 1701 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just one block away from the White House. Where were they going? The office of the campaign to reelect the president. C-R-E-E-P. Yes. Richard Nixon's campaign was called Creep Pretty on brand.

Inside of creeps office workers were frantic. Political campaigns are used to dealing with large amounts of money. I. But this was very different.

Laura Krantz: Yeah, you really can't make this stuff up. One day a top executive from Pennzoil showed up at creep and handed over $150,000 in cash and $550,000 in checks and stock certificates.

David: This is Master plan producer Laura Krantz.

Laura Krantz: There was a New Jersey financier that sent over a worn leather bag with $200,000 of neatly wrapped $100 bills. Howard Hughes's rep dropped off blank checks for the campaign to fill in themselves. How do I get one of those? I know, right? And get this in just one, two day period.

Creep handled about $6 million. That's about $45 million in today's money.

David: No surprise that much of that money was coming from the kinds of donors who wanted political favors from the Nixon White House, from approval of mergers to get out of jail, free cards to the dairy price supports that you heard about in episode one.

Laura Krantz: Right. But. David, you just said that Nixon had already signed Feca. Wasn't it supposed to limit donations and make info about them public?

David: It was, but Creep had found a way to get around the guardrails and the mastermind of all this was G. Gordon Liddy.

Jemma: Okay, so the voice you just heard, that was the voice of David Sarda.

David is the narrator of the Investigative series Master Plan from The Lever. David, can you contextualize us? What are we listening to?

David: Yeah, so this is a, um, uh, an episode at the beginning of the story about the 50 year history, secret history of legalizing corruption in America. And that starts at Watergate, but it's a piece of the Watergate story that has long been forgotten.

People think about Watergate. They think about the break-in, they think about the shenanigans around the coverup. They don't necessarily think about. Who and who funded it and how it was funded. And that was the story that we were telling, uh, and. Obviously suitcases of cash coming into Dulles Airport is a good, uh, mental visual image to put in the listener's minds.

Jemma: It's a strong hook.

David: It is.

Jemma: Um, so I'll just also mention that this show, master plan, it won a signal award this last year, and we will get into that in just a moment. But first, um, to contextualize why we're here, why, uh, David and Jeff and I are on. Stage is that we're gonna be spending the next 25 ish minutes talking to y'all in a very tactical and practical way about the world of podcast awards, about the landscape of the awards that are out there, about how to make an award-winning podcast about how to market and submit an award-winning podcast, and how these shows are adjudicated.

And, um, the awards kind of, um, mechanisms work internally. So. Think about your questions, uh, you know, prep those 'cause we're gonna hold some time at the end to ask. Um, but just to jump in, I'll share that. Uh, my name is Gemma. I'm the general manager of the Signal Awards, which recognizes excellence in podcasting.

And by way of introduction, you know, we just met David. Um, you are the voice talent, but you are also, and I kind of love this, um, Nomin. I mean, I doula nominated for an Oscar. For the film, don't Look up. Uh, you are also a speech writer for Bernie Sanders and as a Bernie bro myself, I mean. We love to hear it.

Um, and you're the founder of the Lever and Award-winning outlet dedicated explicitly to holding power accountable. Um, welcome to Podcast Movement.

Jeff: Thank you

Jemma: And Jeff, not your first rodeo here at Podcast Movement, Jeff Umbro. You are the founder and CEO of the Podglomerate, an award-winning company, which produces distributes and monetizes podcasts.

And I learned, uh, well. Writing this introduction, you support more than 30 million monthly podcast downloads through your work?

Jeff: Yeah, we, we have a great team that really helps support a lot of amazing shows, including Master Plan. So a hundred percent

Jemma: Brilliant. Um, so back to the clip that we just heard.

What did it win an award for?

David: So we, we, we won a signal award. We were just, um, claps. Uh, today we were named a Webby honoree. Uh, we were a finalist for, um, for the ays. Uh, and we, we've submitted it to various journalism awards as well, sort of not just podcast awards. Um, and. We, we do think we, we invested a lot of time, a lot of resources in this series, and I was, frankly, I was a little nervous about it, uh, because we invested so much in it.

But it, it really, um, it really paid off for us as a, as a journalism outlet, as a company, uh, and for our brand. And by the way, in no small thanks to the Podglomerate who helped us really get it out there, I gave him a big discount to say that.

Jemma: I mean, I think you're partially answering this question, but I am curious, like, what does winning an award change for you personally or professionally?

Why, why chase that goal?

David: That's a great question. Um, I, I, I think that it's important, especially in, um, in, we're in independent media. I think a lot of folks in podcasts or. In, or at least adjacent to independent media. And if you're in a big media apparatus, the podcast section can be sort of its own smaller section.

So I think about the, um, the investment of time and resources that we made in applying to the awards as a way to get us, um, better known in the industry and also as a validator. To, uh, potential listeners, uh, who are inundated with, uh, uh, sort of infinite numbers of choices. Uh, and so you want to try to use it to, uh, stand out and say, Hey, this is something that has been recognized.

This is something that is credible. This is something that's worth your time. Uh, and I think, but, but I will, I would also say this. I, I don't necessarily think it's like its own standalone game changer. Right. It's gotta be part of a larger strategy of what you're trying to do to build out your footprint.

Right? It's one piece of that. Um, and, and I think it, it, it, look, it can be a time consuming piece. Um, and so you gotta, I, I would suggest thinking carefully about picking and choosing your battles, like master plan took us almost two years to actually report out and develop. And so when it came out, I was like, look, this is worth.

Really taking the extra time to give it as good a shot as possible to get as much recognition as it can. Not in service of like, you know, feeling like I'm great or we are great, but in service of You did it for the ego. Yeah. But, but, but, but in service of the feed itself for the next season, having a chance to get an even bigger audience.

Jeff: And, and not to mention if you're gonna be doing future productions with different partners, like this is now an accolade that you can include in like your outreach to these different distribu distribution partners or other media when it comes to coverage for the show and that kind of thing. So there's a lot of different kind of, uh, superpowers that like awards can give you and can like really attribute to the show.

Jemma: Let's take one more. Listen to a clip from Master Plan. Cue it up.

David: The mastermind of all this was G. Gordon Liddy. If you're even remotely familiar with Watergate, you know who this guy is. The bald, crazy eyed former FBI agent with the bristle brush mustache, the guy who would hold his hand over a candle to show his tolerance for pain.

He's known for coming up with the Watergate burglary, but what most folks don't know. Is that he was also the architect of this incredibly bold plan to get around campaign finance laws. It actually was amazing if highly sketchy.

Laura Krantz: Officially, Liddy was the general counsel for Creep, the guy whose job it was to make sure the committee followed the law.

But we got ahold of this memo. He wrote to the White House about using a loophole to get around the new law. Here's how it worked.

David: Nixon signed

Laura Krantz: Fika.

Jemma: This is like a, you can't make this shit up kind of thing.

David: Yeah, totally. That the process of, of exploring these lost White House memos and seeing how they, I mean, they wrote everything down, so it really made it, um, really fun and horrifying at the same time.

Jemma: I love it. Um, if you wanna hear what happens next, listen, download, subscribe. There was a

Jeff: break in, um, there, there are literally hundreds of moments in this show just like that. It, it's wild.

Jemma: Um, I wanna zoom out for a moment. We've spoken at the show level. Let's talk industry level. Jeff, could you give us kind of a rundown of today's, you know, contemporary awards landscape?

What are the awards that you submit to on behalf of your clients? Um, what goes into making those decisions? Lay it out.

Jeff: Sure. So what I'm gonna say now is just gonna scratch the surface, but the awards industry is a whole thing. Uh, every different kind of, uh, niche industry. So business, marketing, sports, uh, podcasting, general media, film books, they all have their own ecosystems surrounding like what kind of awards you can submit to.

So what we're all doing here is obviously audio and podcasting. Um, but. There's more than just submitting to, you know, the audio awards. Uh, the big ones would be, you know, the Signal Awards, uh, which Gemma does such an amazing job with. Uh, but then also, you know, the Webbys has a podcast, uh, kind of. Segment that they, uh, can, you know, you can win an award for.

There are the ABIs, which we had the award ceremony on this stage last night. Uh, and there's a handful of like podcast specific oriented awards that you can submit to that are all a little bit different in terms of like how you submit, how they judge, like who can win. Uh, the iHeart Awards just had their ceremony about a month ago.

Um, all of them generally are trying to recognize like the great work from all of you all. Uh, so the hosts, the creators, the listeners, and the people who are like, you know, coming together to make these properties. Um. Beyond that, there is a whole ecosystem of awards surrounding journalism or other audio properties which have like stemmed either from journalism, broadcast, or an extension of podcasting.

So, you know, you have the Peabodys, the Pulitzer now does an audio category, uh, the Murrow Awards, the DuPont Awards. Uh, audio is just a medium and people are using that to explore different ways of telling stories and journalism. And, and now it's really exciting to see like how all of these different, like platforms are coming together to celebrate the work of all of you all.

Uh, so what we do at Podglomerate is help you all to understand what that ecosystem looks like and where you fit into it. Uh, and if it is like worth your time to actually, you know. Submit your show and try and produce your show for one of these accolades. Um. And the answer is, is like, for the most part, yes, you guys should submit and like, you know, it's worth trying to get your work celebrated.

Uh, so I, again, just scratch the surface, but, um, generally speaking, that's kind of like what, uh, the folks in the audio world are paying attention to when it comes to like their awards submissions. And then, you know, if you're. Uh, like a sports show or a film show or a food show, like you might want to think about something that's industry specific.

Um, we had a food podcast a while ago that submitted for a James Beard Award for audio.

Jemma: Cool. I love that.

Jeff: Yeah. They did not win, but it was, it was a really fun process to go through.

Jemma: I know you said scratch the surface a few times, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you to scratch a little bit deeper. Sure. Sure.

And just, you know, if I were someone sitting in the audience right now thinking about how to make my award competitive Yeah. Or sorry, my, my show competitive to an award. How would you kind of tee up their podcast for success, um, in terms of the submission process?

Jeff: Yeah, I think it, it starts with two things really when you're actually trying to make the show.

Uh, one is really understanding who you're making it for. Uh, if your show is for everybody, then your show is for nobody. Uh, so like you really want to understand like, you know, which particular individual you are making this for, and I. And Tom Webster, who's here somewhere, uh, has this really amazing technique where he literally will like, create an avatar for the listener that he wants to reach and, and like put it on his desk when he is like talking to clients about like what show they should make.

Um, I. But it, it's, it's really important to understand like who you're trying to make the show for, uh, in order to understand like who the audience for that show is. And once you understand who the audience is, you can understand better, like which of these awards are gonna be like, competitive for you and like what you wanna pay attention to when you're trying to navigate that.

Um, so like, assuming you make a show that you really are proud of, that like scratches that itch for that particular listener, then you, uh. You know, submit your show to these different awards and then you want to pay attention to like, how that's gonna be perceived and, and kind of, uh, picked up by the folks who are going to be voting for the show.

Um, some of these award ceremonies have listener, you know, choice sections. I was

Jemma: gonna say, do you study the judging panel?

Jeff: Do you like I personally do not. Okay. But like, uh, that would be

Jemma: a deep cut.

Jeff: You do wanna understand like, the kind of person who's going to be paying attention to these awards. So, you know, like what kind of listener is going to be looking at, like your submission. Uh, the, the Ambs last night is a group of 1200. It's a trade organization with a group of 1200 members made up of a lot of people that are probably in this crowd, but just like editors, producers, writers, researchers, hosts.

People who are actually like in the weeds doing the thing. So like you wanna really understand kind of like who you're trying to attract. And then, uh. You can kind of campaign for various awards in certain ways. Like you're not necessarily gonna like, you know, do a big press kickoff or anything around some of these, but you might, uh, you know, if you're trying to win the adage award, then like, you know, maybe you should try and get into like, the advertising trade magazines, uh, just because you can assume that the people who are judging these things are gonna be reading each of these different outlets and, and you see that all the time in like film and television and books and that kind of thing.

Um. So you can kind of cater to, to those folks. Um, so anyway, I, I know I'm, I'm kind of rambling a little bit, but like, uh, it's just worth spending some time trying to like reverse engineer and think through like who your, your targets are, whether that's a judge, a listener, uh, or like the different platforms that you're going to submit to.

Like, there are a lot of different ways to really like consider, uh, like how you want to be perceived and then try and work backwards from there.

Jemma: I will also say, um, and I, I can't speak for other award programs, but at Signal we make our judging criteria public. Um, it's published on our website. We have three kind of, um, tent pole criteria that we ask our judges to consider, and the first is impact and really how we qualify that as thinking about the.

Emotional residue as of the podcast, does it stick with you? Are you thinking about it later? Are you texting it to a friend and being like, listen to this? Um, has it, has it reverberated in your life in some kind of way? So impact being the first criteria, the second being quality of craft, you know, is the show.

And it, obviously that varies and that's gonna sound different in an investigative podcast than it will on a kid's podcast. But, you know, are the ways that editing, pacing, cadence, narration, script writing, sound design, um, being articulated. Emphasizing and illuminating the idea and the intention that you had with making that show.

Um, so we have, um, impact quality of craft. And then the third is category fit. And I feel like you were kind of dancing around this idea, but like, you know, really considering where a show is gonna land because you want the judges to be able to be comparing apples to apples, um, and not apples to oranges in their listening process.

And you know, at Signal in particular, and I'm just, uh, this is. I'm only saying this because I can't represent other awards as intimately. Um, but you know, we have a very wide array of award categories, in part because we want to honor and recognize the specific, um, kind of like worlds of documentary news podcasts, and let those shows be adjudicated alongside one another.

Jeff: I, I think too, uh, it's, it's, as Gem is saying, it's like really important to understand what you're submitting to, uh, both in terms of like what is like, you know, a, the best fit for you all, but also like where you're gonna be the most competitive and like, have the best chances of winning, which, you know, obviously we all want to do.

Uh, but, but Gemma, I wanted to ask you like, why would somebody want to submit to an award?

Jemma: Totally. I think there you, David, you chat, you chat chatted a little bit about the kind of like, I, I would call it like the emotional benefit. Um, but the emotional benefit is very real. Um, I've talked to award winners who have said to me, you know, I wasn't gonna go through on a third season.

This, making this show is a lot of work week after week, week, month after month. But to know that a jury of, you know, acclaimed. Producers and editors and industry experts recognize my work made, gave me that motivation, that boost to keep going. Um, I think that the sense of, um, validation is really important and it, uh, it's not just for the ego, it's for your team and it's, you know, the act of.

Pressing publish on an MP three to Spotify is like such an emotionally devaluing thing to do in comparison to the labor, like the months, years possibly of labor. And so to have a physical award and a, you know, on a, we do a winner's party for signal. Um, that just makes the work seem valued and seen in ways that I think are actually really critical to like stamina and to, um, wellbeing.

But then, you know, alongside those emotional reasons, there are the real brass tack benefits of winning an award. Um, there is someone in this audience who I've spoken with who'd let me know that soon after winning a signal that co-sign was, you know, um. Helped him have a meeting with a major network, and now his show is represented by that said network.

Um, you know, it's a marker of legitimacy and excellence. You can put the signal logo, um, on your sales deck, on your, um, materials. I spoke with a winner recently who had gotten a six figure grant for a, uh, non-profit project. Um, and. That she was able to then go back to the grant and report to them, you know, the, the philanthropic benefits that you gave me paid out.

We won this award, and that resulted in, you know, a year two funding for the project.

Jeff: It, it's also, uh. It's a legitimizing thing that allows you to like, really, I don't wanna say that it like, you know, values your work, but in a lot of ways it does. Like it shows you and your listeners and you know, the press that you're pitching or the distributors that you're talking to that like, not only do I think this is great, but like all of these really, you know, impressive expert judges like, think that this work is great.

Um. And also like it can lead to money, uh, which is, you know, really important for everybody here. That's about money. Well, you can, like, some of these awards do have a monetary like prize, uh, but most of them don't. Uh, so like, don't let that be like the, the big driver. Um, but it allows you to like. Get into conversations that you might not otherwise, it allows you to like turn this into potential advertising opportunities or sponsorships.

It allows you to build relationships with people that you may not otherwise be able to get in touch with. Uh, there are a lot of grant opportunities that like look really kindly to the visibility that comes from this and, and. That also is something we haven't touched on, like a lot of these awards are very visible and that allows for more people to find your work, which allows you to get more advertising opportunities, which allows you to get more premium subscribers like David.

I I imagine that like you got a lot more paying members of the Lever because of Master Plan and you got more people who listen to Master Plan because of the various awards. That's absolutely true. I

David: mean that we, we have a business model where. We have paying subscribers, premium subscribers, to sort of a, well, we do print stuff.

We have, you know, newsletter, print, quote unquote, uh, and audio. And, um, you know, the ul, the Ulti, our business model rests on sponsorships and essentially converted, you know, free subscribers to paying subscribers. So obviously, you know, we talk about, it is a little off topic, but. There's the top of the filter and then there's the bottom of the filter, right?

The top of the filter is your free subscriber at the bottom of the filter, where you want to get a certain number of your free subscribers, uh, is, you know, you're paying subscribers. So the, the podcast, the more is, to my mind, our audio stuff is top of the filter stuff, right? The, the everybody, it's, you know, you don't get the bonus content, but you get the, the free stuff with ads.

And if you really like it, some of you are gonna filter down into the bottom of the filter. Obviously, the award recognition is a way to make the top of the filter a bit larger, right? Is to say, oh, you know, again, I think about it in terms of everyone's got a paradox of choice. You open your podcast app, there's a zillion different podcasts.

If something can help you get more people onto the free feed, it gets you. A certain percentage of them will ultimately get to the paid feed, which ultimately supports the resources to actually make what we're making.

Jeff: And, and just one, one quick thing just to illustrate this. If you all open your Apple Podcast app on your phone right now, you'll see that they have a whole section, a whole strip that says, uh, like.

Um, amb Best of the year nominees or something. Um, there are hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people a day that are gonna see that like you, and you literally cannot pay for that kind of promotion.

Jemma: On that note, um, the early entry deadline for the Signal Awards is coming up on May 9th. Um, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions about that.

Um, would love to see submissions from folks in the audience. And we have about five minutes for q and a, so I'm gonna put these headphones back on. Peter in the back is gonna be running a microphone. Um, and feel free to ask us anything. Open. Open call.

We have a question up here in the front.

Question 1: Thank you. Thank you guys for this. Um, I am a former journalist, so very familiar with awards in that space, but have recently left and worked for a children's hospital and I have found kind of in my just journey of researching awards that were still in this space where certain awards are very specific.

Like if you don't work for, um, a certain type of company or a broadcast situation or you know, whatever that might look like that you're not able to submit. Do you see kind of the future of. I know not all awards, but do we see the future of that evolving so that more corporations that are trying to get into this podcast space, um, can be a part of, of these opportunities?

Jemma: I'm curious what award you're referencing. 'cause I know there's definitely at Signal. We have a brand storytelling vertical at a number of other awards. I'm blanking right now. The door is open. It's on my computer

Question 1: so I can come find you tomorrow. But I, I found there's definitely spaces, but you know. A lot of, for example, like health and fitness is one of the ones that I'm constantly looking at and it's like, do you come from this type of an organization?

Are you represented by this? And if the answer is no, then you know you're not able to submit. And you know, while I felt like we would be a great opportunity, you know, great, great content for that space. Um, I'm just curious if you see things growing in the podcast space for awards to allow for kind of more untraditional spaces that are creating podcasts to be a part of that discussion.

Jemma: Hmm. Um, I guess I, I see it as maybe a, a already thriving in, uh, portion of the industry. I know Tribeca has their Tribeca X, um, division, which is specifically for brand storytelling. Um. Signal does as well. I'm, yeah,

Jeff: I, I, I think, uh, short version is like, yes. I think it probably will expand and also like it is pretty, um, expansive already.

Uh, I, I don't know the specific word you're referencing, but I know that there are a lot of opportunities for anybody to submit just based on, um, it for like the signals Tribeca, for the ABIs, for, um. Uh, there, there are some, like more specific versions of these awards. Like, you know, the Communicator Awards is a big business.

One, Digiday has an award, Adweek, uh, so I don't know, I don't know if this is like a research question of like, you know, where else you can find it, but, um, I. Yeah, I, I don't know. I think that there probably will be more, uh, in the future because it's a great business. Um, and also I think that, uh, there's also quite a bit today, so

Question 1: thank you.

Yeah.

Jeff: And, and we have, um, a blog on this, on our website podglomerate dot com slash media. Um, so, and are very happy to answer that url. Yeah, very happy to answer questions if you, if you want to email them.

Question 2: Thank you so much. Hey guys, thanks so much for doing this. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so I have a question about the aftermath. So when I was an undergrad, I want a Peabody Award and congrats. Well, thank you. That's a big deal. That's huge. A lot of doors were opened. Big deal. Well, thank you. No, uh, a lot of doors were opened that I did not walk through 'cause I didn't know they were there.

Mm. And last night we won an Ambie. I don't wanna repeat that mistake again. So what advice would you have as far as making the most of the moment after that happens from like a career standpoint?

Jemma: Totally. I mean, I think this very, well actually, I kind of want you guys to answer. I'll, I'll hold for a second.

David: So, uh, I can speak about the, um, the Oscars. Uh, we, I got an Oscar nomination. We didn't win. Uh, but who's counting? Yeah, but who's counting? Right. Um, so one piece of advice is don't have a massive Hollywood writer's strike right after you get nominated for an Oscar. Uh, but in all seriousness, um, I think the, I think the important thing to do is to.

Try to use the awards to develop. I, I also have obviously done political campaigns to do some name ID inside of the industry that that award means something to. So it's a way to rekindle or put yourself back on the radar of people who may sort of know you and then you can sort of ping em and be like, Hey.

I exist, I'm here. Hey, I'm work. You know? So I think a lot of it is like rekindling acquaintances into potential, essentially business relationships,

Jemma: ignore them

David: and, or, and, and in addition to if you want to have, or you want to do a reach out to somebody who you haven't really had a way to do that, the award is a way.

It is sort of like a conversation starter. Like, Hey, I have a project over here that I've been developing over the last few years. You know, we just want a signal for this other thing or, or whatever. For, for this other thing. I've been want always wanting to reach out to you. Now I kind of have an excuse to do that.

So I feel like if you do that, you know, 50 times you'll get three or four, uh, you know, put 50 irons in the fire. You know, one or 2, 3, 4 will come back a little bit hotter. And, and you know, so it's honestly, it's kind of like a top of the filter, bottom of the filter metaphor, if you will. Right? Like use it for the top of your relationship filter.

Jeff: That advice has made my career. Mm-hmm. Uh, I do that with everything. And, and by the way, your Peabody does not expire, so. Yeah. It doesn't expire. Yeah. So you, you are a, a Signal and Peabody, a winning creator, award-winning creator. Uh, you should put that in like all of your press materials. You've put, put your email signature, like shout, shout about it on social media.

Um, and to David's point, like, uh. This is a great opportunity and one of many, I'm sure, where you can reach back out to these folks that you wanna make these connections with. Um, there's, and these opportunities don't go away, so like you'll be able to continue to make hay of this for a long time to come.

Jemma: Thank you all so much, and thank you David and Jeff.

Jeff: Thank you. Thanks much. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone.