‘Very Worst Thing,’ ‘Dear Alana,’ Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hip Hop 50th Shows Lead Nominations for Ambies Podcast Awards

Scripted podcast “The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen,” unscripted series “Dear Alana,” and retrospective looks at the origins of hip hop lead the list of nominees for the fourth annual Ambies podcast kudos administered by The Podcast Academy.

“Very Worst Thing,” a psychological and supernatural drama produced by Wolf at the Door creative studio, earned the most bids of any program with five. Tenderfoot TV’s “Dear Alana,” a searing eight-episode series exploring the journals of a young woman who killed herself after undergoing cruel conversion therapy, was second with four.

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Six different titles amassed three nominations, including “Can You Dig It?: A Hip-Hop Origin Story with Chuck D” and true crime entry “Exposed: Cover-Up at Columbia University.” Another 16 titles grabbed two nominations, ranging from “Who Killed JFK?” and “Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas” to “50 Years of Hip Hop” and “The Cat in the Hat Cast.”

The 10 contenders for Podcast of the Year honors (listed below) demonstrate the breadth of audio storytelling at a time when the audio entertainment sector is seeing rapid growth in the volume of content produced and demand from listeners who are devoting more hours to listening rather than watching entertainment, news and unscripted content via podcasts and audio books.

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
The Very Worst Thing that Could Possibly Happen

Nominees for podcast host include Anderson Cooper, Malcolm Gladwell and Rachel Maddow. Julia Louis-Dreyfus nabbed a nom for best interview series for her much-praised “Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.” Carey Mulligan, Maya Hawke and Rose Leslie are in the race for Performance in Audio Fiction. NFL stars Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce made the list for “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce,” which is nommed for best sports podcast.

All told, the Ambies field this year encompasses 192 nominees across 27 categories. The winners will be handed out a ceremony set for March 26 at the JW Marriott LA Live Los Angeles.

Donald Albright, chair of The Podcast Academy and CEO and co-founder of Atlanta-based Tenderfoot TV, praised the field of nominees as shows that have “elevated the art of podcasting to new heights” and “embody the essence of excellence in audio storytelling.”

Here is the full list of nominations for The Ambies 2024:

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
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
The Closer
Trustonomy

Best Comedy Podcast
Bad Dates
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
How Did This Get Made?
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

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
King Slime: The Prosecution of Young Thug and YSL
Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Thomas

Best Entertainment Podcast
50 Years of Hip-Hop

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
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
Untextbooked

Best Indie Podcast
Abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast
BEEF with Bridget Todd
Dragoncast
Expectant
Surfing Corporate
The Nocturnists
Weight For It

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
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
Your Mama’s Kitchen

Best Knowledge, Science or Tech Podcast
Big Deep – An Ocean Podcast
Darknet Diaries
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
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
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

Best Personal Growth / Spirituality Podcast
Dear Alana,
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

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
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
Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore
We Don’t Talk About Leonard

Best Production and Sound Design
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
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
The Blog Era

Best Scriptwriting, Fiction
Ad Lucem – Troian Bellisario, Josh Close
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
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

Best Sports Podcast
All the Smoke
Four Years of Heat
Heart of the Game
New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce
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
The Vanishing Point
Who Killed JFK?

Best Wellness or Relationships Podcast
Big Lash Energy
Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Embodied
It Can’t Just Be Me
Jillian on Love
Life Kit
Love Letters

(Pictured top: Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

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