NYC Podcast Awards: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the NYC Podcast Awards are and who runs them

The NYC Podcast Awards, which the organizer brands as The LIBBY Awards, is a public-vote award for podcast and audio creators presented by Silver Sound, an Emmy-winning production company based in Manhattan, under its SILVER - Podcast & Video Production name. The ballot lives on the organizer's website, at the silver-nyc.com press release page for the awards, and entries run through a separate organizer domain, podcastawards.nyc.

The ballot is deliberately audio-only. Silver Sound's announcement rules out video, ads and AI in the same breath, a stance the page states right in its headline: "No categories for video. Or ads. Or AI." Category names printed on the announcement include Best Field, Foley'd, or Found Sound, Best Community and Best Debut Podcast, but the organizer presents those as examples, so read the ballot for the full slate rather than assuming the printed names are complete.

The market is New York City by name and by base, yet the organizer says entry is open to creators worldwide, which stretches the nominee pool well past the city itself. A listener in another country and a listener in Manhattan have the same standing on this ballot, which separates it from the neighborhood reader votes New York is used to.

The confirmed edition and its dates

The confirmed edition year is 2026, and its audience vote opens in February 2027. Silver Sound's own pages state that the awards were founded in 2025, so the program's origins predate the cycle that is confirmed here, but the only edition year the organizer's material supports is this one.

This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The dated facts for the cycle read as follows. Entries are open now at podcastawards.nyc and close November 15, 2026. Late entries are accepted through December 1, 2026 at a 50% surcharge. Eligible episodes are those created January 1, 2025 or later, and entry is open to creators worldwide. Nominees are announced and the audience vote opens February 4, 2027, a pairing the organizer prints directly in its announcement.

Some details stay off the page: Silver Sound has not printed day-level open and close times for either the entry window or the audience vote, nor a date for any edition after this one; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How to vote in The LIBBY Awards

Voting in The LIBBY Awards is a plain public vote on Silver Sound's own site. Once the nominee announcement is live on February 4, 2027, supporters visit the press release page at silver-nyc.com/nycpodcastawards/pressrelease, choose a category and cast their vote. The stated rule is once per category per day through noon on March 12, which rewards supporters who come back daily rather than voting once and disappearing.

Mid-February brings a nominees listening event in New York City, a date the organizer pairs with the vote opening in its announcement. That event is a natural reminder point for nominees: a team can point supporters at the ballot in the same week the listening event puts the episodes in front of new listeners for the first time.

Nothing in the organizer's material describes a sign-in requirement for voters. The announcement describes the audience vote opening but stays quiet on accounts and on any email verification step, so treat the ballot as open access and let the live page settle any question. The literal sequence a supporter follows is laid out in the voting steps on this page.

How the NYC Podcast Awards differ from New York's reader ballots

New York readers know a family of ballots shaped like Best of Brooklyn, Best of Queens, Best of the Bronx, Best of Westchester, Best of Hudson Valley and Best of New York City. Those programs ask readers to pick favorite local businesses in a publisher-run vote.

The NYC Podcast Awards is a different animal in three ways. Its organizer is a production company rather than a publisher, its entrants are podcast creators rather than shops and restaurants, and its ballot is audio-only by design, with no categories for video, ads or AI. Entry is open to creators worldwide, so the nominee pool is not limited to New York City even though Silver Sound is based in Manhattan and the listening event takes place there.

Practically, a supporter's strategy differs too. A diner campaigns to its neighborhood; a podcast campaigns to listeners anywhere its feed reaches. If a nominee also fits a neighborhood ballot, running both pushes is possible, since the programs answer to different organizers and separate rulebooks.

Building daily support for a LIBBY Awards nominee

The daily rule shapes everything about a support push here. A vote that resets every day is won by reminders, not by single announcements: a newsletter send, a pinned post, a show note in every new episode pointing at silver-nyc.com/nycpodcastawards/pressrelease while the window is open. The mid-February listening event gives nominees a dated moment to ask their audience in person.

The organizer publishes no statement about outside voting help, so the honest position is that ordinary audience outreach is what its own pages describe and nothing else is endorsed. Whatever route a nominee takes, it should fit the once-per-category-per-day rhythm rather than fight it, and the get more votes guide covers outreach patterns that match daily-reset ballots like this one.