Podcast Awards
The Podcast Awards are a scam thought up by some guy in his mom's basement who just happened to register PodcastAwards.com before anyone else. Every year, this guy will get well known podcasters and Internet celebrities to tell their fans to go vote for them every day on his site. Eventually, voting closes and he picks whoever he likes best as winner and gives a People's Choice award to the real winner from the voting. The winners get a $1 off coupon at Yvon's Car Wash in Lewiston, Maine, a free ice cream sundae at McDonald's (with purchase of an extra value meal), and a free 2 week trial to Netflix.
2009 Scam School Nomination
When this guy read the list of 2009 nominees, he had accidentally put Scam School on his list as "Scam Schoo". Reading down the list, he pronounced it "Sam Schoo".
2010 Awards
They happened?
2011 Awards
FrogPants shows The Morning Stream, Coverville, and Film Sack won. Tech News Today won as well.
2012 Awards
TL;DR: NSFW was nominated in the "Entertainment" category and lost to a bunch of unknown podcasts. Clearly these awards are a Sam. Leo presented the awards this year during New Media Expo on January 7, 2013. After the presentation ended, he agreed to match funding for next year's awards. (Lisa likely had a panic attack at that announcement.)
Coverville won "Podsafe Music" for the second year in a row.
2013 Awards
NSFW was nominated in the "Best Video Podcast" category against iPad Today and Frame Rate. Sword & Laser was nominated in "Cultural/Arts". The Morning Stream won "People's Choice" and "Comedy" categories, Film Sack won "Movies/Films", Coverville won "Podsafe Music" for the third consecutive year, and Tech News Today (with Tom Merritt) won "Technology" and beat out Security Now and This Week in Tech.
2014* Awards
These were actually held on April 14, 2015 for some reason. Also Chatrealm decided to give a shit this time, along with the Tadpool. t2t2 made a bookmarklet that helped people vote for the Diamond Stream ticket, which consisted of Night Attack for Mature and Video, DTNS for Tech, The Morning Stream for Comedy, Film Sack for Movies, The Instance for Gaming, and Coverville for Podsafe Music (whatever that is). Diamond Stream was 7 for 7 this year. Shwood was in attendance, and Brian Ibbott wore a funny hat.
In February 2016, Podcast Awards announced that "Podcast Awards is going to need a serious re-work of the site itself, a complete revamp of the rules and awards processes." This may have been in response to complaints that certain shows and hosts appeared to dominate the awards. (Tee hee!) Go read about the amateur-ish production.
Competitor Awards
A competitor to the Podcast Awards are the Streamy Awards, which started in 2009. The 2010 Streamy Awards ceremony was, by all accounts, a horrible failure due to issues such as technical mishaps and extremely crude, self-deprecating "humor". They can DIAF.
Another competing series of awards are the Webby Awards. Those things are classy! They are usually presented in June during Internet Week in New York.