Actually, I attended and was a panelist at the New Media Expo where the Podcast Awards were hosted. I didn't attend the awards because I wasn't interested in the categories and I was busy having fun. However one person from our group did go and he met several cool people, but he said that those awards are more of a popularity contest like the People's Choice Awards based solely on number of votes.
The people who invited us to present are trying to more of a fiction podcast presence at the Expo. We suggested including a fiction category in the Podcast Awards. Apparently the NMX doesn't run the awards; they just happen there. But they did know they person who does run it and are going to suggest it.