The initial nominations begins at a set date (sometime in September for the 2009 awards) and continues for 15 days. Voters are allowed to nominate a set of shows only once, where in the past they could nominate once a day. Duplicate nominations will be thrown out, as will nominations to more than one sub-category. The entry form asks for the name of the podcast, the podcast url, your name, your email address, and comments. The email address must be valid to receive verification on the vote.

After the 15 days, Podcast Connect and 22 listeners volunteers selected in January will review all the nominations over a 7-10 day period. The podcast must be in an appropriate category, started the show prior to May 1, have more than 8 shows produced, and an RSS feed with enclosures visible on their website. A grading sheet is used in the review. The total number of nominations a podcast receives accounts for only 40% of the grading, with the quality of the website's design (15%), quality of sound (15%), quality of deliverance and show format (10%), and relevance of content (20%) also being considered.

Then the top 7-10 nominees in each category will be selected for the final voting slate, voting will last for 15 days (in the past, the maximum number of nominees to choice from was 5). Winners of the People's Choice and Best Produced awards cannot win any categories the following year.

Some[who?] have criticized the awards, saying they've "outlived their usefulness" after only a few years in existence charging that the awards and their nominees don't represent what people are actually listening to. Only 1 of the award winners in 2006 came from the top 100 most popular iTunes podcasts.[dead link]

The Podcast Awards consists of 20 sub-categories (Business, Comedy, Sports, etc.) that are announced sometime in fall, and two larger categories (People's Choice and Best Produced) that are announced during the actual ceremony. The prizes rewarded to winners are donation/sponsor-driven via PayPal. In 2006, they were able to award podcasters almost $8,000 in cash and prizes, with additional website exposure through 2006-2007 of eight million plus hits.