When the Golden Globes announced the creation of a Best Podcast category, I was excited.
Podcasting being recognized on one of entertainment’s biggest stages matters. For a medium that has spent years fighting to be viewed alongside television, film, radio and other established forms of entertainment, seeing a podcast receive a Golden Globe is significant.
But as the category returns for the 2027 Golden Globes, I find myself asking the same question I asked when the process was first introduced:
Who exactly is this award designed to recognize?
Because once again, podcasters cannot simply submit their work for consideration.
Instead, Luminate will determine a list of 25 podcasts eligible to enter the competition. That means before Golden Globes voters hear an episode, consider an interview, evaluate storytelling, examine production or experience what makes a particular podcast special, most of the podcasting industry has already been eliminated.
And that’s where I have a problem.
Popularity Shouldn’t Be the Price of Admission
I understand why the Golden Globes needs eligibility standards.
There are millions of podcasts. Obviously, Golden Globes voters cannot listen to every one of them. There has to be a system that determines eligibility and eventually narrows the field.
But there is an enormous difference between establishing eligibility requirements and using commercial success as the gatekeeper for artistic consideration.
Metrics such as audience reach, downloads, streams, subscribers, chart performance, revenue, editorial placement and cross-platform presence can tell us a lot about the commercial success and popularity of a podcast. They cannot necessarily tell us whether it is one of the best podcasts.
A podcast reaching millions of listeners can be exceptional. A podcast reaching thousands can also be exceptional. The size of the audience shouldn’t determine whether the second podcast is even allowed to compete against the first.
Popularity can be a factor in an award. It shouldn’t be the price of admission.
Then There’s the Money
The financial component makes the barrier even harder to ignore.
The process has included a $500 entry fee and an additional $5,000 associated with the reel submission for those advancing through the process.
Think about what that means for independent podcasting.
We’re not simply talking about whether an independent creator can produce work worthy of recognition. We’re talking about whether that creator can first become commercially large enough to enter the conversation and then have the financial resources necessary to remain in it.
For a major podcast network or entertainment company, those expenses may be part of an awards campaign budget. For an independent podcaster financing a show personally? Thousands of dollars can represent equipment, hosting, travel, production expenses, marketing and months of operating costs.
At that point, we’re no longer discussing one barrier. We’re discussing several.
You need the audience, visibility, money, and also be someone the show believes will be in the room.
Are We Honoring Podcasts or Producing a Television Moment?
The Golden Globes is a television show. They want nominees sitting at tables and capturing reactions. They want winners walking onto a stage and accepting a Golden Globe.
I get it. That’s the appeal of an awards show. But it raises a question that I think the podcasting industry should be willing to ask:
Is the goal to create the best podcast award possible, or the podcast category that works best for a Golden Globes telecast?
If attendance becomes part of determining who can realistically participate, we’re moving even further away from judging the podcast itself.
Whether a creator can attend the Golden Globes has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of their podcast. Neither does whether that creator is recognizable when a television camera cuts to their table.
And when you combine that expectation with an eligibility system built around the industry’s biggest podcasts and significant financial requirements, the likely result isn’t difficult to predict.
The system naturally favors celebrity-led, commercially successful and network-backed podcasts. That doesn’t mean those podcasts aren’t deserving. Many of them are exceptional. That’s not the argument.
Independent Podcasters Deserve the Opportunity to Lose
I’ve been podcasting for 20 years. I’ve watched this medium evolve from something people struggled to explain into an industry capable of producing extraordinary journalism, storytelling, comedy, entertainment, education and conversation.
I’ve also watched independent creators continually prove that you don’t need a major network behind you to produce meaningful work.
As an independent creator myself, I’m not asking the Golden Globes to nominate my podcast. I’m asking for something much simpler.
Give us the opportunity to lose.
We as indie creators should be able to submit our work. We deserve the right to compete against celebrity-led productions, be evaluated against interviews produced by major networks, and our production values stand alongside podcasts who have millions of listeners.
THEN, judge the work. If another podcast is better, it should win. That’s competition.
But when the overwhelming majority of podcasters are eliminated before their work can ever be considered, then what are we even doing?
I’ve had the opportunity to judge podcast awards myself, and one of the most rewarding parts of that experience has been encountering work I may never have discovered otherwise.
That is the main purpose of awards, at least to me. They don’t merely validate the names we already know. At best, awards discover excellence.
There Are Other Ways to Do This
Opening eligibility doesn’t mean Golden Globes voters suddenly need to listen to thousands of podcasts. One factor that can be incorporated is to create a jury who understand podcasting. Make sure there are eligibility requirements, including they need to have X amount of episodes per calendar year. Or, another aspect could be their podcast has been in existence for one full year.
Before it makes it to the final Globes voting body, have the submissions go through multiple rounds of judging. There are ways to maintain a manageable competition without allowing audience size to decide who gets through the front door.
Other awards organizations have figured out how to evaluate large submission pools.
We deserve the same respect in this space.
I Want This Category to Succeed
I don’t want the Golden Globes to eliminate its podcast category. I want it to become better. With the Critics Choice Association introducing its own Critics Choice Creator Awards, not only will podcasts be honored, but they encourage independent podcasters to compete. This is just one of the big entertainment institutions who are getting it right for podcasts.
Putting podcasting on the Golden Globes stage introduces the medium to an enormous audience and sends an important message about how far this industry has come.
But if you’re going to celebrate podcasting, celebrate podcasting.
Not simply the 25 shows from an analytics company that also OWNS the Golden Globes determine if they are large enough to qualify, or the productions capable of financing an awards campaign, or simply the personalities guaranteed to make good television when the camera pans across the ballroom.
Podcasting became what it is because the barrier to creating something meaningful was lower than traditional media. Someone with an idea, a microphone and something worth saying could build something extraordinary.
Some of today’s biggest podcasts started exactly that way.
The Golden Globes has taken an important step by giving podcasting a seat at the table. Now it’s time to make sure more of podcasting has a legitimate opportunity to earn that seat.
Open the door. Let the work compete.
Is that too much to ask?
