“You all look so gorgeous which is why you excel in a medium where no one can see you,” Trixie Mattel quipped at the start of Tuesday night’s Ambie Awards inside of the JW Marriott LA Live in Los Angeles. The winner of season three of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars served as the host of The Podcast Academy’s fourth annual Awards for Excellence in Audio sponsored by Wondery, The Hollywood Reporter, Audible, Dolby, Campside Media,The Podcast Show, Tenderfoot TV, Outfront, Castbox, Raedio, Gumball, Headgum, Good Tape, and IMDb.
The top honor of the evening went to Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas, which was awarded Podcast of the Year. The show, now in its eighth season, is hosted by Slate staff writer Joel Anderson and tells the story of Clarence Thomas’s rise to power.
Weight For It, hosted by Ronald Young Jr., was the most awarded show during the ceremony which recognized a total of 192 nominees across 27 categories. The narrative storytelling show about individual’s intrusive thoughts about their size won Best Indie Podcast, Best Indie Podcast Host/Hosts, and Best Society and Culture Podcast.
“I’m really happy about winning this award because anybody who independently produces understands that you spend so much of your time by yourself,” Young Jr. said through tears as he accepted the award for Best Indie Podcast. “You’re writing, and you’re editing, and you’re cutting tape, and you’re doing all that, and then you have to wonder, ‘is this good?’ ‘Are people even gonna like it?’ But I guess I don’t have to wonder anymore.”
Addition highlights of the night included Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ series of conversations with supremely accomplished older women, Wiser Than Me, win Best Interview Podcast; Pop culture podcaster Ira Madison III, host of Keep It!, receiving the Impact Award, which recognizes an individual or podcast that has made a significant positive effect on its listeners; And author Malcolm Gladwell, host and creator of Revisionist History, receiving the Governors Award, which recognizes a podcast or individual for the influence they’ve had on the industry.
“I started this thinking I was just going to do a one-off or a couple of shows and that was it, and here I am nine years later,” Gladwell said in a videotaped acceptance speech. “We’ve done so many things that I’m enormously proud of, from our series on the firebombing of Tokyo that turned into a book, The Bomber Mafia, to our big series on gun violence last year, to our big rewrite of The Little Mermaid, which was intended to get Disney to wake up to what was wrong with one of its classics, to everything from why I hate McDonald’s french fries, to why student councils should be elected by Lottery, and a million things in between. It’s been an incredible ride, not to mention way too many shows on the Ivy league, but that’s the great thing about podcasts. You get to indulge your personal idiosyncrasies, and I’ve done that.”
See below for the full list of the 2024 winners and nominees:
Podcast of The Year
50 Years of Hip-Hop
Can You Dig It?: A Hip-Hop Origin Story with Chuck D
Embedded: Taking Cover
Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University
Ghost Story
Next Year In Moscow
Questlove Supreme
Post Reports: The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop
Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas (WINNER)
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen
Best Business Podcast
Access & Opportunity
Behind the Money
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Design Nerds Anonymous
Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried (WINNER)
The Closer
Trustonomy
Best Comedy Podcast
Bad Dates
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
How Did This Get Made? (WINNER)
Let’s Make A Rom-Com
Lovett or Leave It
The Big Flop
Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!
Best DIY Podcast
Beans Without Boundaries
Beyond 6 Seconds
Black Is America
Culture Kids Podcast
Gooned
Latinx Can Podcast
STITCH PLEASE (WINNER)
Best Documentary Podcast
Borrowed and Banned
Embedded: Taking Cover
Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin
Free From Desire: Asexual in the City of Love
Ghost Story (WINNER)
King Slime: The Prosecution of Young Thug and YSL
Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas
Best Entertainment Podcast (Sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter)
50 Years of Hip-Hop (WINNER)
Creative Control
Films to Be Buried With with Brett Goldstein
HBO’s The Last of Us Podcast
Movies vs. Capitalism
MUBI Podcast
Women of Marvel
Best Fiction Podcast
Midnight Burger
People Who Knew Me
Possession
PREVIA: A Tech Heist (WINNER)
Supreme: The Battle for Roe
The Foxes of Hydesville
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen
Best History Podcast
Hindsight
History’s Secret Heroes
Spy Valley: An Engineer’s Nuclear Betrayal
The Africas vs. America
This is History: A Dynasty to Die For
Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children (WINNER)
Untextbooked
Best Indie Podcast (Sponsored by Tenderfoot TV)
Abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast
BEEF with Bridget Todd
Dragoncast
Expectant
Surfing Corporate
The Nocturnists
Weight For It (WINNER)
Best Indie Podcast Host or Hosts
Ali Block, MD – The Nocturnists
Ami Thakkar – Tuckered Out with Ami Thakkar
Emma Lehman – Gooned
Jill Jonassen – The Cost of Extremism
Molly Miller – Night Raid
Ronald Young Jr. – Weight For It (WINNER)
Sequoia Holmes – Black People Love Paramore
Best Interview Podcast
Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union Podcast
Apple News In Conversation
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Questlove Supreme
The Skinny Confidential
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (WINNER)
Your Mama’s Kitchen
Best Knowledge, Science or Tech Podcast
Big Deep – An Ocean Podcast
Darknet Diaries (WINNER)
Moral Repair: A Black Exploration of Tech
To the Best of Our Knowledge: Luminous
Unexplainable
Voices from DARPA
Without
Best News Podcast
Odd Lots: Pot Lots
Queer News
Start Here
The Decibel
Today, Explained (WINNER)
Tug of War: Israel-Hamas War
Up First
Best Original Score and Music Supervision
Calm it Down – Chad Lawson
Can You Dig It?: A Hip-Hop Origin Story with Chuck D – Bryan Master
Louder Than A Riot – Suzi Analogue, Kassa Overall, and Ramtin Arablouei
Next Year In Moscow
Othello – Lindsay Jones (WINNER)
The Cat In The Hat Cast – Jack Mitchell
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen – Alex Kemp
Best Performance in Audio Fiction
Hidden Signal: Evergreen – Lana Condor
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol – Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Lucy Punch, Ben Barnes, Juliet Mills, Ryan O’Quinn, Bethany Joy Lenz, Clive Standen, Maxwell Caulfield
Supreme: The Battle for Roe – Maya Hawke, William H. Macy, Abigail Breslin, et al.
The Foxes of Hydesville – Carey Mulligan
The Salvation – Rose Leslie, Toby Jones, Robert Bathurst, et al.
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen – Antonia Desplat, Isaac Gonzalez Rossi Yvette Lu, et al.
Yes We Cannabis – Sam Richardson, Method Man, Langston Kerman, Punkie Johnson, Richard Kind, Laci Mosley, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes, Heidi Gardner, Tichina Arnold, Tim Meadows, Rachel Dratch, Chris Parnell (WINNER)
Best Personal Growth / Spirituality Podcast
Dear Alana, (WINNER)
How to Be a Better Human
Meditative Story
Moral Repair: A Black Exploration of Tech
Ritually
Second Sunday
SOL Affirmations with Felicia & Karega
Best Podcast for Kids
African Folktales with Miss Jo Jo
Disney Frozen: Forces of Nature
Greeking Out
Mina & Lucy’s Guide to Slaying Dracula
Sesame Street – Foley & Friends Season 3
The Arthur Podcast
The Cat In The Hat Cast (WINNER)
Best Podcast Host or Hosts
Anderson Cooper – All There Is with Anderson Cooper
David Rind – Tug of War: Israel-Hamas War
Isaac-Davy Aronson & Rachel Maddow – Rachel Maddow Presents: Déjà News
Kerry Godliman – Stolen Hearts
Martine Powers – Post Reports: The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop (WINNER)
Malcolm Gladwell – Revisionist History
Rose Reid & Nando Vila – Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware
Best Politics or Opinion Podcast
Bad Watchdog
National Emergency
Next Year In Moscow
Post Reports
The NPR Politics Podcast (WINNER)
Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore
We Don’t Talk About Leonard
Best Production and Sound Design (Dolby)
Chameleon: Dr. Dante – Garrett Tiedemann
Hidden Signal: Evergreen – Geoffrey Cannock, Jose Varon, The Audio Hive, Neely Oeftering, Sarah Ma, David Tatasciore, Ben Milchev
Long Shadow
People Who Knew Me – Martin Schulz
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen – Alex Kemp and Beau Milkis
Throughline (WINNER)
Undertow: The Sisters
Best Reporting
Dear Alana, – Simon Kent Fung
Imperfect Paradise: People vs. Karen
Murder In Boston: The Untold Story of the Charles and Carol Stuart Shooting – Adrian Walker
Operation: Tradebom
Shoot the Messenger: Espionage, Murder & Pegasus Spyware
The 13th Step – Lauren Chooljian (WINNER)
The Blog Era
Best Scriptwriting, Fiction
Ad Lucem – Troian Bellisario, Josh Close (WINNER)
Expectant – Pippa Johnstone
Hidden Signal: Evergreen – Chloe Stearns, John Wynn
Pariah – Davy Gardner
The Foxes of Hydesville – Shawn Christensen
Trust Fall – Claire Friedman
Zoey’s Mythical Menagerie – Leigh Joel Scott
Best Scriptwriting, Nonfiction
Classy with Jonathan Menjivar – Jonathan Menjivar
Code Switch – B.A Parker (WINNER)
Dear Alana, – Simon Kent Fung, Laurie Polisky, Donald Albright
Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University – Laura Beil
Foundering: The John McAfee Story
The Banksy Story – James Peak
Who Killed JFK? – David Hoffman
Best Society and Culture Podcast
Can You Dig It?: A Hip-Hop Origin Story with Chuck D
Dear Alana,
Dynamite Doug
Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University
ROS Presents: Roughhousing
The Story Exchange
Weight For It (WINNER)
Best Sports Podcast
All the Smoke
Four Years of Heat
Heart of the Game
New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (WINNER)
Reclaimed: The Forgotten League
The Lead
The Playcallers
Best True Crime Podcast
Disappeared: The Bradley Sisters
Heinous – An Asian True Crime Podcast
Smoke Screen: Just Say You’re Sorry
The Girl in the Blue Mustang
The Girlfriends (WINNER)
The Vanishing Point
Who Killed JFK?
Best Wellness or Relationships Podcast
Big Lash Energy
Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Embodied (WINNER)
It Can’t Just Be Me
Jillian on Love
Life Kit
Love Letters
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter
