2025 Ambies Judging Guidelines: All Categories, Listening Round 2

Thank you for participating as a judge in the 2025 Awards for Excellence in Audio; The Ambies! Welcome to the second round of Blue Ribbon Panel judging! 

In this round, you will listen to a set of entries that have been pre-screened and deemed potentially worthy of an Ambies nomination. Like in the last round, we ask that you listen to each entry and then rank that submission on a 1-7 (7 highest) scale in a number of quality and craftsmanship areas.

Additionally, in this round you may also consider details about the makeup of the team – these details may have been shared by the submitting podcaster to give some background on the perspective of the creators. 

The top nominees in each category will be determined by results from this round.

Listening Notes

As you listen, you must set aside your personal preferences and judge from the perspective of a neutral listener.  Assume that you are listening to a podcast because this is a topic of interest to you. In addition to listening to the entire episode for entries up to 1 hour in length, we ask that you not vary the playback speed in any way.  

Listen for the highest quality: a polished, professional program coupled with a clean, clear technical production. We recommend that you either keep notes as you listen, or complete the judge survey immediately after you finish each episode.

Evaluation & Timeline 

To access your assigned entries and attendant evaluation forms, please go to:

https://ambies.awardsengine.com

log in: your email address 

password: Podcast2025! 

You will see your assigned entries listed, and will be able to listen either through this platform, or by finding the podcast on your preferred listening platform.  Entries not only list the season and episode of the submission, but typically also include a link to the podcast online.  If you have any trouble finding this information, please reach out to Emma Harris (emma@thepodcastacademy.com).

Your results for this round of listening are due on February 7, 2025.

If you will not be able to complete your listening in the time allotted and/or if you see a podcast on your list that poses a conflict of interest as a judge, please let Emma Harris (emma@thepodcastacademy.com) know right away – you will be asked to skip the evaluation for any episode posing a conflict of interest. 

If you have questions, concerns, or issues with the listening platform just let us know by emailing Emma Harris emma@thepodcastacademy.com  — she'll help you out, or connect you with the appropriate person to troubleshoot your problem.