NMX is proud to have been the host for The 2012 Podcasting Awards. This awards ceremony, which was founded by Todd Cochrane (@geeknews), celebrates the best in podcasting. This  year, it was hosted by Leo Laporte from TWiT. Here are the 2012 winners:

• Best Video Podcast: The Young Turks
• Business: Manager Tools
• Comedy: WTF with Marc Maron
• Cultural Arts: The Moth
• Education: Grammar Girl
• Entertainment: Rob Has a Podcast
• Food and Drink: The Beerists
• Gaming: The Rooster Teeth Podcast
• General: Internet Box Podcast
• GLBT: Throwing Shade
• Health/Fitness: The Mental Illness Happy Hour
• Mature: Savage Love
• Movies/Film: Spill
• Podsafe Music: Coverville
• Politics/News: The Majority Report
• Religion: Ardent Atheist
• Science: The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
• Sports: ESPN Fantasy Focus Football
• Technology: The Audacity to Podcast
• Travel: WDW Radio
• Best Produced: Best of the Left
• People’s Choice: ESPN Fantasy Focus Fotball

Congratulations to all nominees and winners!

Also, an interesting challenge was set forth at the awards ceremony. At the end, Todd spoke about donating to the awards to keep them going for next year, and one podcaster (from Ardent Atheist I believe, though the packed room meant it was hard to see), shouted out a pledge to donate $100 and challenged every other podcast in the room to do the same.

Inspired by his pledge, Leo himself offered to write a check for half of the awards operating costs (about $3,500) if the podcasters would donate the other half in the next month. So look for a donation button to be coming soon on The Podcasting Awards website!