The Podcast Academy, six years on: awards, new people, and what's next
Above: Ti King on TPA’s stand at Podfest in early 2026, chatting with Jennifer Longworth
It’s been six years since Hernan Lopez stood on stage at Podcast Movement Evolutions and unveiled The Podcast Academy, including a Q&A with our Editor.
As our membership organisation, after six years it’s worthwhile to look at how The Podcast Academy has done: and where it might be going next.
A good place to start is to look at money - The Podcast Academy Inc’s most recent tax filing, ending December 2024. (The accounts ending December 2025 aren’t yet filed).
In those accounts, we learn that the organisation brought in $60,365 from membership dues. In the member’s report covering 2024, the Academy said there were 924 members, which suggests an average membership fee of $65. The figure is decreasing: the latest active member number is 826, as April 2025.
Looking through the accounts, I’d estimate there were around 1,200 members in 2022, with a heavily-discounted initial membership price. Clearly, 2022 was the boom time for podcasting in general: the end of the pandemic, and significant revenues sunk into the global podcasting industry. It’s no surprise that 2022, like in other parts of podcasting, was the peak year for TPA membership.
Notwithstanding that, the total number of memberships are going down, and in a call with TPA, it’s clear that this is an area of focus for the team moving forward: both attracting new members, but also clarifying the benefits of membership.
The Ambies
But perhaps membership isn’t the main function of the organisation. The Ambies, which TPA organises, is financially much more important - it brought in $313,400 in entry fees alone in 2024. Sponsorships of various TPA events, including The Ambies, were $131,200. That pushes the total revenue into TPA in 2024 to just over half a million dollars, with The Ambies behind much of that. In 2025, The Ambies had 1,761 submissions.
The Ambies have been an unqualified success, and have helped push podcasting into the mainstream. Without The Ambies, you could argue that there would be no podcast award in the Golden Globes: it has had the intended effect of raising the visibility of podcasting. And, bluntly, without The Ambies, the organisation wouldn’t make enough money to survive.
In Hernan Lopez’s original pitch for The Podcast Academy, he drew parallels with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. While not, quite, at the same scale, the AMPAS, which organises the Oscars, has an estimated 11,000 members.
The AMPAS is quite similar to The Podcast Academy: the awards are the financial focus of the organisation. The AMPAS brings in $150mn from the Academy Awards, and $4mn from “membership dues and theater rentals”. Only 2.5% of the AMPAS’s revenue is from memberships. So, 11% of TPA’s revenue from memberships is about the right level for this sort of organisation.
I’ve been involved in a number of awards, and from what I can see, The Ambies is run well and is a respected event, with careful, cautious judging practices to avoid undue influence. (I should, of course, disclose that I was given the inaugural International Impact Award in 2025; this isn’t part of the main awards event, however.)
A new Executive Director
There are four part-time employees at The Podcast Academy. Total renumeration for them is, according to the accounts, $133,220 - nobody’s getting rich off their work for TPA. One of those part-time employees is the Executive Director.
In January, a new Executive Director for The Podcast Academy, Ami Thakkar, was announced. The release made no mention of the first Executive Director, Michele Cobb, who had worked for the organisation since February 2020.
On the face of it, a well-loved and successful Executive Director suddenly disappearing, with no mention of thanks, seemed a little odd. Photographs had been removed from the website, and any mention of her work had been deleted. In reporting for this story, I asked why. But, instead of a call from The Podcast Academy, I had a call from the organisation’s lawyer. He assured me there was nothing to report. In my experience, any time a lawyer tells you there’s nothing to report, it means the opposite.
In my call with the lawyer, I asked him why The Podcast Academy had removed any mention of Michele Cobb from their website. Later that day, an email from TPA’s Chairperson, Christy Mirabal, pointed me to a page on TPA’s website about the history of the organisation, which does mention and acknowledge Cobb in a short paragraph, before a description, four times as long, of the current Executive Director. Examining the website metadata, that page was added to the website on Friday, April 10, at 1.33pm. My call with TPA’s lawyer was that morning at 9.15am.
Subsequently, in a call with Christy Mirabal and Ami Thakkar, I asked again why Cobb wasn’t acknowledged in Thakkar’s press release, and had been removed from the website. Mirabal told me that she regrets not acknowledging Michele’s contribution in the announcement about Thakkar, and acknowledges that the “history” page was added as a direct response to my question; but as for anything else, I was told, once more, that they were unable to comment. Cobb’s photograph didn’t appear in the 2025 annual report, despite being Executive Director for most of the year.
Michele Cobb would not comment to me on the record. I notice that she has removed all mention of The Podcast Academy from her LinkedIn profile; though as a fractional worker - working for a number of different organisations at the same time - it’s possible that she just wanted to avoid confusion. I know that she enjoyed her time at TPA; and she remains personally in touch with a number of people from the industry; even commenting on a few podcast stories I’ve posted to LinkedIn. Her track record points toward being a good, capable person. I look forward to seeing what she does next.
Similarly, Ami is a good move - she’s a podcaster, and she offers a much more international perspective to TPA, having worked in many different countries. She should be a great asset to the organisation.
There can be any number of good, valid legal reasons not to comment on personnel, so I’m not suggesting anything bad has been covered-up here. However, any membership organisation should be clear and transparent; and for whatever reason, I’m not sure that’s the case here.
What’s next for TPA?
The Podcast Academy is a presence at many podcast conferences, including The Podcast Show in London, as well as US-based events like Podcast Movement and Podfest. Indeed, it spent $294,000 at conferences and events in 2024. In many ways, TPA is subsidising the industry’s events: and that’s welcome. (Podnews is a 50% business partnership with Event Movement, which is an event company contracted to produce a number of events, including Podcast Movement).
One obvious area for growth for TPA is the international market. English-speaking countries are probably a good first focus: with obvious opportunities in Europe, Australia and Canada. TPA has started some work in Spanish, including a properly-judged category in The Ambies. Yet, all the Executive Committee are based in the US; excepting one person, all the governors are based in the US; and excepting one person, all the awards committee are based in the US. International growth won’t happen while the only point of reference for the organisation is the US, and all virtual events happen in that timezone. It should also be noted that for TPA’s tentpole event, The Ambies, every single winner in 2026 was from North America.
The opportunity for a member at TPA is to vote in The Ambies, but also to be a part of a wider community: something that a new piece of software that TPA has rolled out should help with, but also something that comes from facilitating in-person meetings. Podcasting is, by its nature, quite solitary work; there is a real value to bring people together.
Particularly, there is a “middle void” in the podcasting industry; plenty of help for those starting out, and plenty of support mechanisms at the top end, but not too much in the middle: where the majority of people are. TPA would do well to focus on that.
After six years - secrecy aside - TPA appears to be in a good position. The Ambies seems to be received well by the industry, and has a good track record in celebrating audio excellence.
Since its launch, I’ve been a personal member of The Podcast Academy. You should be too.
