One of the early interviews I conducted on this site was with Brian Perkins, who helped create a set of Disney Podcast awards. I like Brian, so I "reached out" via Twitter when this year's slate of nominees was released under the same banner he used previously. It was not really surprising when he informed me that he did not participate in this year's nomination process, since this year's slate of nomineees clearly was not up to the quality of previous years.

Let me start by saying that I appreciate anyone who is trying to spread the word about Disney podcasts, but I think there is some level of responsibility to do that well. I've tried to do that on this site, and am currently in the process of creating a new version of that directory. As part of that effort, I conducted a survey here on the site (which has more entries than the "panel of 30 people" that apparently did the listing of nominees for this year's "awards"). Though I haven't finished my updated directory, I have reviewed all the submissions, read reviews, etc… and based on my research (which is admittedly influenced by you, my readers), this list of nominees is not reflective of shows that people are currently listening to and enjoying. (In the world of Twitter-dot-COM, I referred to this nominee slate as "hot garbage". As I also said in a follow-up tweet, I am not commenting on any of the specific shows listed in the nominations, I have a problem with the composition of the nominees itself.)

Here is my biggest complaint (and why I can't take this year's awards seriously): I have a mound of data in front of me, where people listed out up to 5 of their favorite podcasts, and 3 of the 4 most popular entries ARE NOT MENTIONED ANYWHERE ON ON THIS SLATE OF NOMINEES. These shows, which clearly be included in any alleged "Best Of" listing are:

• Backside of Magic
• The Disney Dish w/ Jim Hill
• The Florida Project

There are additional problems I have with the listing ("Modern" Men of Mouse?, Len Testa is a host on WDW Today?), but the main problem I have–as indicated by the data I described above–is that I don't think the shows listed reflect current Disney podcast listening trends. For example, shows that were popular on similar lists in previous years such as WDW Radio and WDW Today received hardly any mentions in this me survey. To me, that indicates that engaged Disney fans aren't listening to those shows as much anymore. The Disney Podcast Awards, however, do not seem to accurately reflect those trends.

Ultimately, I think this issue could be best cleared up by explaining more about the nomination process, the composition of the panel, what the criteria were for each category, etc… Until such time, however, I'm going to disregard these "awards" as things that don't actually have any value as indicators of actual show quality.