European Podcast Award

In the last podcast we gave a small overview of what the jury will be using to judge the podcasts. Now that the submission is closed and the jury can get to work, we’d like to give you a deeper look into the different criterias. So, based on what exactly will the submitted podcasts be judged on and how does the jury work?

Overview:

• Why we separate categories of submitted podcasts
• Who will be jury members?
• How is the jury work organized?
• How are the winners determined?
• What are the exact criterias for judging?

Why we separate categories of submitted podcasts

First of all it is worth noting again that depending on which category your podcast was entered in, the jury will have different expectations: Personality, Non Profit, Business and Professional (description of the four categories).

To bring an example: If you are a podcast from a media enterprise and you only have a naked feed for your podcast that is bad – because you should know better. If on the other hand a personal podcaster has a small (but sufficient) blog for his or her podcast, this is absolutly fine.

Who will be jury members?

The organizers behind the European Podcast Award believe strongly in the connection of the old world of media and the new world of podcasting. Both sides can learn from each other and there is the strong wish to help podcasting evolve further. The selection of the Jury reflects this very much: podcasters and members from all types of media as well as other picks make for a strong and diverse jury. Now, you may wanna chime in and note that only ‘just podcasters’ will be able to judge other podcasters, but we do not believe in that. Instead, we do believe that it right to judge the podcast (only in part of course) from the view point of old media.

For example audio productions have been around for a very long time and you do not need to be a podcaster to hear if somebody has crappy audio – your ears will tell you. Also, you will not need to be a podcaster to hear if a podcaster manages to bring a good presentation or not. This just reflects a lot how the audience is seeing podcasts: They are different from traditional media but what is good from the old world is expected as a minimum here.

Each jury member will listen to podcasts that have been nominated, visit the Internet presences on which the respective podcasts are presented and then fill out the EPA evaluation form. As we have different amounts of submission per country we do have a different amount of judges, as each jury member judges at least eight and up to twelve podcasts at most.

How is the jury work organized?

First of all, those podcasts that make it to the final round for jury evaluation are selected from all of the nominated podcasts in accordance with an internal evaluation of online voting and an evaluation round on the part of the EPA editorship. This is done to avoid ‘gaming the system’ – as we all know, the since of which are easy to determine if you know what you are looking for. The online voting results in a ranking – the first get 125 Points – the last 1 Point. In the jury-voting each candidate can get a maximum of 500 Points.

The number of podcasts to be evaluated in the final round may differ greatly from one country to the next. For each participating country the EPA prepares online a list with information on the podcasts that are in the final round. In addition, each jury has the option of designating and evaluating two of their own suggestions for the final round. All of the podcasts can be heard via the EPA portal at any time. The jury work is done online – all results are evaluated in ranking lists of each country, category and all over as European ranking.

How are the winners determined?

For each evaluation criterion the jury members of the various countries assign the individual podcasts scores of 0 (poor) to 100 (outstanding) – based on percentage figures. The following criteria are evaluated: Content, form, continuity, presentation on the Internet and interactivity. These are defined with partial aspects.

In purely arithmetic terms the winners are thus derived on a national basis and at the European level. If any podcasts should receive the same score, then the EPA jury of experts will be called upon once again in order to determine the winners in a last evaluation round.

The EPA Initiative reserves the right to define justified special awards if, for example, a podcast project cannot be compared with the majority of the submitted suggestions due to clearly recognizable, exceptional performance.

What are the exact criterias for judging?

Contents:

• Are the contents implemented in a clear and understandable manner?
• Can what is announced in the title and description text also be heard?
• Entertainment is hard work! Was the artist successful?
• Does one perceive the editorial expertise, preparation and work?

Form:

• Is a format / style perceptible in a positive manner?
• How good is the technical quality (sound / voices)?
• Length – the right one for the addressed target group?
• Does the production demonstrate a high level of sophistication?

Presentation on the Internet

• Is there a separate Internet presence / homepage for the podcast?
• Is the podcast available in several file formats (iTunes / MP3)?
• Is the Internet presence user-friendly?
• Are there additional information offers (blog / links)?

Interactivity – does the podcaster more than just publishing podcasts?

• Is interactivity employed at all?
• Does a blog exist in addition to the podcast?
• Does a forum exist in addition to the podcast?

Continuity

• Does the podcast appear on a regular basis?
• Are there more than two follow-ups per month?
• Has the podcast been available for more than one year?
• Is a “central theme” maintained in terms of content?

As mentioned before, this is not the last year of the European Podcast Award – and we fully expect to have modification done in the process of submitting as well as the evaluation of the podcast. There is already a long list of ideas, but if you have any more, please feel free to submit them so we can take them into account for next year!