12/14/2009 02:45:32 PM EST

Best Political Podcast Of 2009 Goes To...The Young Turks!

posted by Tom Hanc

Thank you to all of the awesome fans of The Young Turks for helping us beat some tough competition (including Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh) to win Best Political Podcast Of 2009. As you know, this has been a great month for TYT and while it just keeps getting better, there are still plenty of ways you can continue to help the show. Speaking of which, a special thanks and congratulations to Jay from Best Of The Left which won in the Best Produced category.

-Watch the official announcement from the awards ceremony below:

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Best Political Podcast Of 2009 Goes To...The Young Turks! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
Yaaaaaayyyy! (none / 2)

by EveningStarNM on 12/14/2009 03:50:28 PM EST

Terrorist fist jabs for all involved! (none / 2)

by Spencer on 12/14/2009 05:13:52 PM EST

Perfect (none / 0)
reference.

by Tom Hanc on 12/14/2009 08:18:42 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Woot (none / 0)
YEAH! TYT Nation rides again!

by Cassidac on 12/14/2009 07:07:58 PM EST

YouTube Clip of Award Ceremony (none / 0)

Here's a YouTube Clip of the Podcast Award Ceremony Results. TYT Nation Strikes Again!!!

<h1>2009 Podcast Award Results for Politics Category</h1>

by AaronWysocki on 12/14/2009 07:14:22 PM EST

Update (none / 0)
Your clip of the segment is now in the original post, thanks for creating it.

by Tom Hanc on 12/14/2009 07:32:27 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Hopefully the crew doesn't get sick of IHOP, (none / 0)
because this is definitely worth a trip.

by Spencer on 12/14/2009 08:02:19 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Free Talk Live (none / 0)

I will admit that the Podcast Awards got me to check out some of our competition that I wasn't previously familiar with.  Free Talk Live was the most intriguing.  They are a "pro-liberty" (read: libertarian) show, and seem to have a very active and involved community.  Obviously not up par with the TYT Army, but nonetheless...

Before Saturday they had won Podcastaward's political category every year since the awards began.

I went looking for reaction to our victory on their forums and found a post by one of the hosts:

"I [sic] I have said numerous times on air, I use the Best Political Podcast Award daily in marketing the show. I try to portray to advertisers that yes we do have around a half a million radio listeners, but those radio listeners are not NEARLY as responsive and valuable as our podcast listeners. But we lost the Best Political Podcast Award by a hair's breathe and I can no longer say truthfully "Free Talk Live is a nationally syndicated radio show broadcast on 60 radio stations coast to coast and voted the #1 Political Podcast for 4 years running. I have the little plastic trophies sitting here right in front of me to prove it."

I would like some ideas as to what I can say now that might be just as motivating or as close as I can get."

 Now that is some devastation.  But it gets better.  A commenter later in the thread says:

"Winner: The Young Turks...  BUMMER...

Losing to Limbaugh would have been better.

We're still the #1 non-communist podcast though, right?"

Now that just makes me feel great.

That said, I actually think TYT and FTL are similar in one very important way.  This is based on listening to one episode of FTL (and not even all the way through).  Both shows do not treat their audience like they are morons or 12 year olds.  They talk about news in a conversational way, and while they have a very different perspective they are interesting to listen to because they are having a conversation with each other and the audience.

by publius on 12/15/2009 12:27:02 AM EST

Effective Conversation (none / 0)
You made a very interesting comparison.  You said that both shows, TYT and FTL, "do not treat their audience like they are morons or 12 year olds,... they are interesting to listen to because they are having a conversation with each other and the audience."

This struck me because many right-wing commentary shows, such as Morning Joe, the ABC show that comes on at midnight, and, of course, every show on Fox, also use a "conversational" style.  However, you could sometimes view their tone as condescending.  But they make it easy for a listener to say to himself or herself, "oh, I understand that, but I'll bet that a lot of other people don't".  Because the commentators often speak at an 8th-grade level, or even a 6th-grade level, the often under-educated listener feels that they're being spoken to on their level.

And it's true.

Thus the audience feels rewarded for listening because they can think of themselves as being on some kind of intellectual par with the people on whatever show they're listening to.

So last night, when the ABC commentators (who were acting as if they were two intellectually lazy 16-year-olds talking to each other) were comparing Sarah Palin to William Shatner and singing her praises, talking about how smart Palin is and you'd know that if you just listened to her, their intended audience felt like they fit right in.

by EveningStarNM on 12/15/2009 01:45:32 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Best Political Podcast Of 2009 Goes To...The Young Turks! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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