Irene Hasenberg could be the great-grandmother of the four students with whom she talks about her own extremely tragic youth. “Irene, how did you survive the Holocaust?” Is the subtitle of the nine-part podcast “time capsule” from NDR Info and Funk. The 91-year-old answers the questions of the four young podcasters by sharing her painful memories with them and the listeners.
“Time Capsule” was awarded the German Podcast Prize 2023 on Thursday evening as “Best Conversation”. The ceremony took place in a relaxed atmosphere in the Prinz Charles bar in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Lena Cassel and Micky Beisenherz moderated the evening, which initially focused on serious issues. Ten prizes were awarded, six by a specialist jury, plus four audience prizes that listeners have been able to vote for online in the past few weeks. “The Flood – Why did Johanna have to die?” was awarded in two categories: “Best Research” and “Best Script / Best Author”. In this co-production by WDR and SWR, Marius Reichert, who lives in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler himself, tells the story of a young woman who died in the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley two years ago.
The audience awards showed how popular true crime podcasts are
In the field of journalistic quality, the public broadcasters, who some podcasters regard as old-fashioned, were able to assert themselves with their research in this young genre. The audience award for the best news and politics podcast meanwhile went to Gabor Steingart, long years at Mirror and Handelsblatt, who founded Media Pioneer five years ago. Its flagship is Steingart’s weekday and now award-winning podcast “The Pioneer Briefing”. For the second season of “Addiction & Addicted” John Cook and Hagen Decker were awarded in the category “Best Independent Podcast”. The two talk about their cocaine addiction and now abstinence.
The two audience awards for “Murder lust – crimes and their backgrounds” by Paulina Krasa and Laura Wohlers (category “Knowledge”) as well “Weird Crimes” by Visa Vie and Ines Anioli for Studio Bummens (category “Lifestyle”). The fact that the comedian Kurt Krömer, who has been successful for decades, received a newcomer prize in his late forties was a special point. But “Kurt Kroemer – Feelings”, a podcast in which the host is visited by a surprise guest every episode has only been on the market for a few months.
That Rezo and Julian Bam for “Hobbyless” received the Comedy Audience Award, came as no surprise. After all, the jury’s “Best Corporate Podcast” was also worth a prize. He started “Let’s get started – ideas for a better tomorrow” by the publishing house Penguin Random House, a discussion format with personalities from the own publishing cosmos. Talk formats of all kinds are still the dominant podcast genre.