The iHeartPodcast Awards are returning live in March 2025 to SXSW and will honor 2024’s most innovative and influential voices and creators in podcasting.
This year's iHeartPodcast Awards will take place live on March 10th at 7pm CT/8pm ET at, ACL Live at The Moody Theater. Fans will be able to tune in and stream live on select iHeartRadio stations, on the iHeartRadio app, as well as on iHeartRadio's YouTube channel.
The nominees for the forthcoming 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards have been revealed and they include podcasts and creators across all genres, distributors and platforms with categories including comedy, crime, news, pop culture, sports, food, business and more. Winners in each category will be determined by a panel of blue-ribbon podcast industry leaders, creatives and visionaries.
And as in years past, podcast fans help decide the winner of the coveted Podcast of the Year award by voting online at iHeartPodcastAwards.com. This year's Podcast of the Year nominees include "Normal Gossip," "Three," "Giggly Squad," "Call Her Daddy," "Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang," "Hysterical," "The Telepathy Tapes," "Who Killed JFK?," "Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD" and "The Good Whale." Fan voting will begin today, January 7th and run through February 16th.
The 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards will also present three Icon Awards: Audible Audio Pioneer Award,Social Impact Award and Innovator Award – which will pay tribute to the creators, organizations and podcasts that have made groundbreaking industry contributions. Sarah Spain, Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist and host of "Good Game," will be honored as the 2025 Social Impact Award for her pivotal role in championing equity in sports coverage, equal pay for female athletes and better investment in women’s sports infrastructure.
Dan Taberski will be honored with the 2025 Audible Audio Pioneer Awardfor his significant influence in the podcasting landscape through his storytelling and investigative journalism, including his latest podcast "Hysterical" (nominated for Podcast of the Year and more) and his previous work with "Missing Richard Simmons" and "Surviving Y2K," among others.
The 2025 Innovator Award will honor Daniel Alarcón, a Peruvian-American journalist and novelist, for his work on "The Good Whale" (nominated for Podcast of the Year), which stands out as an innovative and captivating approach to storytelling within the podcasting realm as it revisits the life of Keiko, the orca who gained fame as the star of the 1990s film Free Willy.
See the full list of 2025 iHeartPodcast Awards nominees below.
2025 iHeartPodcast Award Nominees
Podcast of the Year:
- Normal Gossip
- Three
- Giggly Squad
- Call Her Daddy
- Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
- Hysterical
- The Telepathy Tapes
- Who Killed JFK?
- Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
- The Good Whale
Best Business & Finance:
- Planet Money
- How to Money
- Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
- Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
- The Ramsey Show
Best Comedy:
- The Nikki Glaser Podcast
- Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
- Normal Gossip
- The Joe Rogan Experience
- Call Her Daddy
Best Crime:
- Three
- Betrayal
- Up and Vanished
- CounterClock
- Something Was Wrong
Best Pop Culture:
- Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
- The World's First Podcast with Erin & Sara Foster
- Still Processing
- Keep It!
- Pop Culture Happy Hour
Best Food:
- Gastropod
- Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio
- Be My Guest with Ina Garten
- The Recipe with Kenji and Deb
- The Sporkful
Best Wellness & Fitness:
- Huberman Lab
- The Mel Robbins Podcast
- 10% Happier with Dan Harris
- A Slight Change of Plans
- We Can Do Hard Things
Best History
- The Rest is History
- Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
- Throughline
- American History Tellers
- You're Wrong About
Best Kids & Family:
- Good Inside with Dr. Becky
- Koala Moon - Kids Bedtime Stories & Meditations
- Smash Boom Best: A funny, smart debate show for kids and family
- Story Pirates
- Wow in the World
Best Music:
- Song Exploder
- Questlove Supreme
- Popcast
- The Wonder of Stevie
- The Joe Budden Podcast
Best News:
- The Journal.
- The Daily
- Up First from NPR
- Pivot
- Today, Explained
Best Fiction:
- Hello From The Magic Tavern
- Welcome to Night Vale
- Impact Winter
- The Magnus Archives
- Midnight Burger
Best Sports:
- New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
- The Herd with Colin Cowherd
- The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
- The Bill Simmons Podcast
- All The Smoke
Best Science:
- Hidden Brain
- StarTalk Radio
- Stuff To Blow Your Mind
- Ologies with Alie Ward
- Science Vs
Best Technology:
- All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
- Hard Fork
- Better Offline
- Darknet Diaries
- Ted Radio Hour
Best Ad Read:
- Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend
- Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)
- My Brother, My Brother and Me
- SmartLess
- Office Ladies
Best Overall Host:
- Alex Cooper (Call Her Daddy)
- Jamie Loftus (Sixteenth Minute (of Fame))
- Sabrina Tavernise (The Daily)
- Mel Robbins (The Mel Robbins Podcast)
- Dan Taberski (Hysterical)
Best Overall Ensemble:
- We Can Do Hard Things
- My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
- Handsome
- Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
- The Breakfast Club
Best Political:
- Native Land Pod
- The NPR Politics Podcast
- Pod Save America
- The Megyn Kelly Show
- Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Best TV & Film:
- Films To Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein
- Two Ts In A Pod with Teddi Mellencamp and Tamra Judge
- How Did This Get Made?
- The Rewatchables
- Blank Check with Griffin & David
Best Spanish Language:
- Radio Ambulante
- Duolingo Spanish Podcast
- Leyenda Legendarias
- Mija Podcast
- Escuela Secreta
Best Advice/Inspirational:
- Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- On Purpose with Jay Shetty
- The Mel Robbins Podcast
- Life Kit
- Savage Lovecast
Best Beauty & Fashion:
- Naked Beauty
- The goop Podcast
- Glowing Up
- Breaking Beauty Podcast
- Lipstick on the Rim
Best Travel:
- Travel with Rick Steves
- The Atlas Obscura Podcast
- Zero To Travel Podcast
- Women Who Travel
- JUMP with Traveling Jackie
Best Green:
- Unf*cking the Future
- Environmental Insights: Conversations on policy and practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program
- Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
- Threshold
- TED Climate
Best Spirituality & Religion:
- Elevation with Steven Furtick
- Oprah's Super Soul
- WHOA That's Good Podcast
- Bible in a Year with Jack Graham
- Transformation Church
Best Branded Podcast:
- Nerdwallet's Smart Money Podcast
- Into the Mix (Ben and Jerry's)
- Symptomatic: A Medical Mystery Podcast (Novartis)
- You Can't Make This Up (Netflix)
- Mind The Business: Small Business Success Stories (Intuit Quickbooks)
Best Emerging:
- Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce
- So True with Caleb Hearon
- Hysterical
- Wild Card with Rachel Martin
- Shell Game
Best International:
- The Business of Doing Business with Dwayne Kerrigan - Canada
- Mamamia Out Loud - Australia
- Between Two Beers Podcast - New Zealand
- The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - United Kingdom
- Las Alucines - Mexico