The Golden Globes are tuning into the podcast boom.

In a bid to recognize a rapidly rising medium amid an even more quickly shifting media landscape, the Globes announced the addition of a best podcast of the year category at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards. The new honor marks the Globes’ first major expansion since introducing the box office and cinematic achievement category in 2023 — and it’s being met with a potent mix of excitement, skepticism and uncertainty from the podcasting world.

“This is what the industry needs — recognition that podcasting is storytelling,” says comedian Bert Kreischer, host of “Bertcast” and “2 Bears, 1 Cave,” which he co-hosts with his friend Tom Segura. “It’s not just noise. It’s a craft.”

Craft, however, is notoriously hard to define in a medium where a 90-minute unscripted conversation can top the charts next to a tightly edited news brief or a crime docuseries. According to preliminary guidelines,...