Nominations for the sixth annual Ambie Awards

The Podcast Academy (TPA), the preeminent professional podcast organization, has announced the nominees for its 6th Annual Awards for Excellence in Audio (The Ambies). For the first time ever, The Ambies will be presented as part of On Air Fest, on Monday, February 23 at the Arlo Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY.

The Ambies celebrate excellence in podcasting while elevating the awareness and status of podcasts as a powerful, personal medium for entertainment, information, storytelling, and expression. The ceremony will honor 227 nominees across 33 categories, including six new categories: Podcast Advertiser Innovator Award, Best Ad Read, Best Branded Podcast, Best Emerging Podcast, Best Use of Video in a Podcast, and Vanguard Podcaster of the Year. 

Winners in 32 categories will be selected by the full voting membership of TPA. The Vanguard Podcaster of the Year award will be determined separately by the inaugural Vanguard Jury, which will be announced at a later date ahead of The Ambies. 

Eligible new members will be able to vote to determine this year’s winners if applications are submitted by January 23. More information may be found at www.thepodcastacademy.com/join-the-community.

“This year’s Ambies nominees highlight the range and ambition of today’s podcast creators,” said Christy Mirabal, chair of The Podcast Academy. “They’re pushing the medium forward and finding new ways to tell stories that resonate deeply with listeners. They spotlight new voices, push boundaries, and expand far beyond audio alone. The breadth and diversity of today’s podcast creators and content is reflected in this year’s record-breaking number of submissions, the highest we’ve received since the inaugural Ambies in 2021. That vibrancy and evolution will come to life through our partnership with On Air, injecting fresh energy into the ceremony  against the electric backdrop of Brooklyn, NY.”

THE AMBIES 2026 FULL LIST OF NOMINEES:

Podcast of The Year:

• Call Her Daddy
• Crime Junkie
• Pablo Torre Finds Out
• Pod Save America
• Question Everything
• Reveal
• SmartLess
• The Last Invention
• The Mel Robbins Podcast
• Wisecrack

Best Ad Read (Sponsored by Sounds Profitable):

• Begin Again with Davina
• Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
• Reality Gays with Mattie and Poodle
• Revisionist History
• The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
• We Need To Talk
• Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch

Best Branded Podcast:

• Moneywise
• Oprah’s Book Club: Presented by Starbucks
• Sesame Street: Cookie Monster Mysteries
• Things Bakers Know
• Tomorrow’s Cure
• Traveling with AAA
• What The Fraud?

Best Business Podcast:

• Business Wars
• Lead Balloon
• Masters of Scale
• Morning Brew Daily
• NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast
• The Indicator from Planet Money
• The Journal

Best Comedy Podcast:

• Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
• Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
• Murder at the Patel Motel
• SmartLess
• The Bald and The Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
• The Big Pitch with Jimmy Carr
• Wisecrack

Best DIY Podcast:

• abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast
• Black Is America
• Climate Shifted
• Culture Kids
• Redacted History
• The Integrated Schools Podcast
• Twice Displaced

Best Documentary Podcast:

• Al Jazeera Investigates - 36 July: Uprising in Bangladesh 
• IVF Disrupted: The Kindbody Story
• Latino USA
• Not a Very Good Murderer
• The Con: Kaitlyn’s Baby
• The Poppy Day Bomb
• What Could Go Wrong?

Best Emerging Podcast:

• Crook County
• Debt Heads
• How Is This Better?
• Lawless Planet
• Raising Us
• This Guy Sucked
• This News is So Gay

Best Entertainment Podcast:

• Iconic Origins: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• ReLiving Single
• Skip Intro
• The Bop Bible
• The Plot Thickens: Cleopatra
• Twenty Thousand Hertz
• You’ll Hear It

Best Fiction Podcast

• Murder on Mars
• PURPLE HEART WARRIORS
• Red for Revolution
• StanLand
• The Good Life
• TWO THOUSAND AND LATE
• You Feeling This

Best History Podcast:

• Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
• Charlie’s Place
• Division Street Revisited
• God’s Banker
• HISTORY This Week
• Making Gay History: The Nazi Era
• Our Ancestors Were Messy

Best Indie Podcast:

• Debt Heads
• Our Ancestors Were Messy
• Radio Diaries
• Stitch Please
• Taboo Science
• The Fight of My Life: Escaping Scam City
• Worst Club Ever (A Child Loss Podcast)

Best Indie Podcast Host or Hosts:

• Jamie Feldman & Rachel Webster – Debt Heads
• Dusty Weis – Lead Balloon
• Anna DeShawn – Queer News
• Jamie Kern Lima – The Jamie Kern Lima Show
• Zibby Owens – Totally Booked with Zibby
• Maya Guice – White Water
• Allie Kramer – Worst Club Ever (A Child Loss Podcast)

Best Interview Podcast:

• All There Is with Anderson Cooper
• Death, Sex & Money
• Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know
• Lives Less Ordinary
• On with Kara Swisher
• The Oprah Podcast
• We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi & Friends

Best Knowledge, Science or Tech Podcast:

• Levittown
• Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet
• Radiolab
• Shell Game
• Short Wave
• To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy
• We The Children - Kids Talk Climate Change

Best News & Politics Podcast:

• Consider This
• Face Off: The U.S. vs China
• Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet
• Pod Save America
• Radio Atlantic
• Reveal
• Vibe Check

Best Original Score and Music Supervision:

• Bone Valley, Season 3, Graves County
• DC High Volume: Batman
• Lulu’s Late Night
• Daniel Brunelle – Murder at the Patel Motel
• Tangelene Bolton – Scam Factory
• Oded Lev-Ari and Chris Tarry – The Left Arm Treasure Society
• Sandro Morales, Patrick Rodman, and Eric P. Sherman – The Strange Thing About…

Best Performance in Audio Fiction:

• Shailene Woodley – Game of Nines
• Kyle Prue, Mather Zickel, Christopher Gebauer, Caitlyn Carleton, Raechel Wong, Alyssa Mann, Anthony Misiano, and Nicole Kang – In Media Res
• Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, Cooper Burkett, Jenny Maguire, JD Mollison, Laith Nakli, Deirdre O’Connell, Carolyn Baeumler, Zach Shaffer, and Monique Woodley – LEAD how this story ends is up to us
• Maulik Pancholy, Murray Bartlett, Poorna Jagannathan, Karan Soni, Anna Camp, Adam Pally, Margo Martindale, Richard Kind, Conrad Ricamora, Iqbal Theba, Julian Shapiro-Barnum, Padma Lakshmi, et al. – Murder at the Patel Motel
• Marisa Abela – Pride and Prejudice
• Sufyan Mahmud, Isaac Robinson-Smith, Patrick Caberty, Lex Daemon, Georgina Elizabeth Okon – The Invenios Expeditions
• Judd Michael Goldstein, Lauren Marcus, Kate Weiman, David Henry Gerson, Jennifer Roszell, Alyssa Marvin, Anthony Joo, and Carter Jones – The Left Arm Treasure Society

Best Personal Growth / Spirituality Podcast:

• How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality
• How To!
• No Small Endeavor
• The Mel Robbins Podcast
• The Oprah Podcast
• This Is Woman’s Work
• Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Best Podcast for Kids:

• Dogood Detectives
• Folktales from Sudan
• Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest
• Lightcatchers
• Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials
• Sesame Street: Cookie Monster Mysteries
• Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast

Best Podcast Host or Hosts (Sponsored by Outfront):

• Steve Burns – Alive with Steve Burns
• Anderson Cooper – All There Is with Anderson Cooper
• Steven Chua – Dirtbag Climber from CBC Uncover
• Andrea Dunlop – Nobody Should Believe me 
• Will Arnett, Sean Hayes, Jason Bateman – SmartLess
• Oprah Winfrey – The Oprah Podcast
• Rachel Martin – Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Best Production and Sound Design (Sponsored by Dolby):

• John Perotti – Charlie’s Place
• DC High Volume: Batman
• Chris Tarry – Ice Lions
• Jude Brewer, Dan Rosato, & Chris Olin – Iconic Origins: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Shannon Burkett, Andy Kris, & Jenny Maguire – LEAD how this story ends is up to us
• Alex Vespestad, Steven Perez, & Cooper Skinner – Wisecrack
• Michael Kramer – Worst Club Ever (A Child Loss Podcast)

Best Reporting:

• Donie O’Sullivan – CNN Presents: Persuadable
• Nicolo Majnoni – Coal Survivor
• T.J. Raphael – Liberty Lost
• Robyn Semien – Question Everything
• Hannah Levintova and Ashley Cleek – Reveal
• Gregory Warner and Andy Mills – The Last Invention
• Ian Urbina – The Outlaw Ocean

Best Scriptwriting, Fiction:

• Rebecca Humphries – Becoming Meg Dashwood
• Lady Killer
• Maulik Pancholy, Zackary Grady, & Achilles Stamatelaky – Murder at the Patel Motel
• Jeff Schmidt – OMINOUS THRILL
• Jana Naomi Smith – Red for Revolution
• Brian Siegele – Sightings
• Eric P. Sherman – The Strange Thing About…

Best Scriptwriting, Non-Fiction:

• Jeremiah Crowell, Scott Tiffany – Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
• Kyle Tekiela – Crook County 
• Erisa Apantaku, James Edwards, & Philippa Geering – Heat List
• Shannon Burkett – LEAD how this story ends is up to us
• Ryan Sweikert and Garrett Graff – Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet
• Ethan Brooks – No Easy Fix
• Charles Forbes and Edd Hedges – Wisecrack

Best Society and Culture Podcast:

• A Tiny Plot
• Heat List
• Model Wars
• Suave: Season Two
• The Stoop
• Uncuffed
• Wisecrack

Best Spanish Language Narrative Podcast:

• El árbol de la vida
• La Bala Mágica
• La Segunda Muerte del Dios Punk
• No Me Provoquen
• Punto Rojo, Punto Azul
• Se Llamaba Como Yo [She Had My Name]
• Vivir y Morir en Gaza

Best Sports Podcast:

• Chasing Basketball Heaven
• Netflix Sports Club
• New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
• Pablo Torre Finds Out
• San Diego FC: Behind the Flow
• Sports in America with David Greene
• The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly

Best True Crime Podcast (Sponsored by CrimeCon):

• Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer
• Bone Valley, Season 2, Jeremy
• Corruption Uncovered
• Dirtbag Climber
• Nobody Should Believe Me
• Sea of Lies
• Where Is Daniel Morcombe?

Best Use of Video Podcast:

• Antiques Roadshow Detours
• Dark History
• Peacemaker: The Official Podcast with James Gunn
• Tales Unrolled
• The Jamie Kern Lima Show
• The Rest Is History
• The Wednesday Season 2 Official Woecast

Best Wellness or Relationships Podcast:

• A Zen Mind Guided Meditations
• Embodied
• Extraordinary Conversations with Dr. Toby Campbell
• Hack your Body, Heal your Mind
• Joy Lab
• Mental Health Rewritten
• She MD

Podcast Advertiser Innovator Award (Sponsored by Sounds Profitable):

• Charlie’s Place
• My Favorite Murder
• Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce
• Silver Linings with The Old Gays
• The Adam Friedland Show
• The Track Star Podcast
• The Young Turks

NOMINATIONS BREAKDOWN BY PODCAST

• 'Tis the Grinch Holiday Podcast – 1
• A Tiny Plot – 1
• A Zen Mind Guided Meditations – 1
• abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast – 1
• Aftermath: Hunt for the Anthrax Killer – 3
• Al Jazeera Investigates – 1
• Alive with Steve Burns – 1
• All There Is with Anderson Cooper – 2
• ANTIQUES ROADSHOW DETOURS – 1
• Becoming Meg Dashwood – 1
• Begin Again with Davina – 1
• Black Is America – 1
• Bone Valley – 2
• Business Wars – 1
• Call Her Daddy – 1
• Charlie’s Place – 3
• Chasing Basketball Heaven – 1
• Climate Shifted – 1
• CNN Presents: Persuadable – 1
• Coal Survivor – 1
• Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend – 2
• Consider This – 1
• Corruption Uncovered – 1
• Crime Junkie – 1
• Crook County – 2
• Culture Kids – 1
• Dark History – 1
• DC High Volume: Batman – 2
• Death, Sex & Money – 1
• Debt Heads – 3
• Dirtbag Climber from CBC Uncover – 2
• Division Street Revisited – 1
• Dogood Detectives – 1
• El árbol de la vida – 1
• Embodied – 1
• Extraordinary Conversations with Dr. Toby Campbell – 1
• Face Off: The U.S. vs China – 1
• Folktales from Sudan – 1
• Game of Nines – 1
• God’s Banker – 1
• Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest – 1
• Hack your Body, Heal your Mind – 1
• Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know – 1
• Heat List – 2
• HISTORY This Week – 1
• How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality  – 1
• How Is This Better? – 1
• How To! – 1
• Ice Lions – 1
• Iconic Origins: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – 2
• In Media Res – 1
• IVF Disrupted: The Kindbody Story – 1
• Joy Lab – 1
• La Bala Mágica – 1
• La Segunda Muerte del Dios Punk – 1
• Lady Killer – 1
• Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang – 1
• Latino USA – 1
• Lawless Planet – 1
• Lead Balloon – 2
• LEAD how this story ends is up to us – 3
• Levittown – 1
• Liberty Lost – 1
• Lightcatchers – 1
• Lives Less Ordinary – 1
• Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet – 3
• Lulu’s Late Night – 1
• Making Gay History: The Nazi Era – 1
• Masters of Scale – 1
• Mental Health Rewritten – 1
• Model Wars – 1
• Moneywise – 1
• Morning Brew Daily – 1
• Murder at the Patel Motel – 4
• Murder on Mars – 1
• My Favorite Murder – 1
• NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast – 1
• Netflix Sports Club – 1
• New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce – 1
• No Easy Fix – 1
• No Me Provoquen – 1
• No Small Endeavor – 1
• Nobody Should Believe Me – 2
• Not a Very Good Murderer – 1
• Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce – 1
• OMINOUS THRILL – 1
• On with Kara Swisher – 1
• Oprah’s Book Club: Presented by Starbucks – 1
• Our Ancestors Were Messy – 2 
• Pablo Torre Finds Out – 2
• Peacemaker: The Official Podcast with James Gunn – 1
• Pod Save America – 2
• Pride and Prejudice – 1
• Punto Rojo, Punto Azul – 1
• PURPLE HEART WARRIORS – 1
• Queer News – 1
• Question Everything – 2
• Radio Atlantic – 1
• Radio Diaries – 1
• Radiolab – 2
• Radiolab for Kids Presents: Terrestrials – 2
• Raising Us – 1
• Reality Gays with Mattie and Poodle – 1
• Red for Revolution – 2 
• Redacted History – 1
• ReLiving Single – 1
• Reveal – 3
• Revisionist History – 1
• San Diego FC: Behind the Flow – 1
• Scam Factory – 1
• Se Llamaba Como Yo [She Had My Name] – 1
• Sea of Lies – 1
• Sesame Street: Cookie Monster Mysteries – 2
• She MD – 1
• Shell Game – 1
• Short Wave – 1
• Sightings – 1
• Silver Linings with The Old Gays – 1
• Skip Intro – 1
• SmartLess – 3
• Sports in America with David Greene – 1
• StanLand – 1
• Stitch Please – 1
• Suave: Season Two – 1
• Taboo Science – 1
• Tales Unrolled – 1
• The Adam Friedland Show – 1
• The Bald and The Beautiful with Trixie and Katya – 1
• The Big Pitch with Jimmy Carr – 1
• The Bop Bible – 1
• The Con: Kaitlyn’s Baby – 1
• The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly – 1
• The Fight of My Life: Escaping Scam City – 1
• The Good Life – 1
• The Indicator from Planet Money – 1
• The Integrated Schools Podcast – 1
• The Invenios Expeditions – 1
• The Jamie Kern Lima Show – 2
• The Journal – 1
• The Last Invention – 2
• The Left Arm Treasure Society – 2
• The Mel Robbins Podcast – 2
• The Oprah Podcast – 3
• The Outlaw Ocean – 1
• The Plot Thickens: Cleopatra – 1
• The Poppy Day Bomb – 1
• The Rest Is History – 1
• The Stoop – 1
• The Strange Thing About… – 2
• The Track Star Podcast – 1
• The Wednesday Season 2 Official Woecast – 1
• The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart – 1
• The Young Turks – 1
• Things Bakers Know – 1
• This Guy Sucked – 1
• This Is Woman’s Work – 1
• This News is So Gay – 1
• To Catch a Thief: China’s Rise to Cyber Supremacy – 1
• Tomorrow’s Cure – 1
• Totally Booked with Zibby – 1
• Traveling with AAA – 1
• Twenty Thousand Hertz – 1
• Twice Displaced – 1
• TWO THOUSAND AND LATE – 1
• Uncuffed – 1
• Vibe Check – 1
• Vivir y Morir en Gaza – 1
• We Need To Talk – 1
• We The Children - Kids Talk Climate Change – 1
• We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi & Friends – 1
• What Could Go Wrong? – 1
• What The Fraud? – 1
• Where Is Daniel Morcombe? – 1
• White Water – 1
• Wild Card with Rachel Martin – 2
• Wisecrack – 5
• Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch – 1
• Worst Club Ever (A Child Loss Podcast) – 3
• You Feeling This – 1
• You’ll Hear It – 1

NOMINATIONS BREAKDOWN BY PRODUCTION/CO-PRODUCTION/STUDIO/NETWORK

• 143 Studios, SiriusXM – 2
• 30 for 30 Podcasts, ESPN – 1
• A Kids Co. – 1
• A Zen Mind and Airwave – 1
• Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit – 1
• All-American Ruins – 1
• Almudena Ariza / Yes We Cast / RTVE Play – 1
• Ashley Hamer Pritchard – 1
• Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, Visit Myrtle Beach, Pushkin – 2
• Atypical Artists – 1
• Audible – 1
• Audible Originals – 1
• Audible Studios and Sesame Workshop – 2
• Audible with Brock Media and Brain Audio – 1
• Audible/ BBC Studios – 1
• Audible/ Thomas Carter Projects – 1
• Audiochuck – 1
• Back Pocket Studios / History Channel – 1
• Bang Zoom! Studios – 2
• BBC – 1
• BBC Studios – 1
• Bloomberg – 1
• Bloomberg Podcasts – 1
• Broadway Video and Audible – 5
• Cadence Productions – 1
• Campside Media and iHeart – 1
• Campside Media and Sony Entertainment – 1
• Captain and the Fox – 3
• CATHERINE BAILEY PRODUCTIONS LIMITED – 1
• CBC, BBC World Service – 1
• CBC, Kelly & Kelly, Lark Productions – 1
• Climate Shifted – 1
• CNN Podcasts – 3
• Coco Hill Productions – 2
• COURIER Newsroom – 1
• Created and produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project. From CBC. – 1
• Crooked Media – 2
• Crooked Media / Campside Media – 2
• Culture Kids Productions – 1
• DC Comics & Realm – 2
• Dear Media – 1
• Defacto Sound – 1
• Dr. Andre White and Airwave – 1
• E3 Radio – 1
• Emblem Entertainment – 3
• Evergreen Podcasts – 1
• Exactly Right Media – 1
• Fermata Audio – 1
• FlightStory – 2
• Futuro Media Group – 1
• Futuro Studios – 1
• GBH – 1
• Ginni Media – 1
• Goalhanger – 1
• Good Story Guild – 1
• Gum Audio – 1
• GZM Shows – 4
• Hana Baba – 1
• Harpo Productions – 4
• Hartbeat and Color Farm Media – 1
• Hatch – 1
• iHeartPodcasts – 2
• Integrated Schools – 1
• James Patterson Entertainment and Audible 1
• Jeff Schmidt Productions, LLC 1
• Kaleidoscope 2
• KALW Public Media 1
• King Arthur Baking Company 1
• Lark Productions, Kelly&Kelly, CBC Podcasts – 1
• Lava for Good – 2
• Lem Zakharia – 1
• Lemonada Media – 1
• Lemonada Media & 186k Films – 1
• Leviathan Audio Productions – 1
• Life is Love – 2
• Long Lead – 3
• Longview – 2
• Lower Street – 1
• Making Gay History – 1
• Mary & Melissa Productions LLC – 1
• Mayo Clinic – 1
• Meadowlark Media – 2
• Meta Mana Media – 2
• Monday Archives – 1
• Morning Brew Inc. – 1
• Multitude – 1
• Nerdwallet and Airwave – 1
• Netflix – 1
• Netflix & BBC Studios – 1
• Netflix & Listen – 1
• Netflix & Pod People – 1
• New York Magazine & Vox Media – 1
• New York Public Radio – 1
• Nicole Kalil and Airwave – 1
• NPR – 5
• OBB Sound, HBO Max, DC Studios – 1
• Open Studio – 1
• Overtones Media | iHeartRadio – 1
• Owls Education Company – 2
• Panakin Studios – 1
• Paramount Pictures / XTR / High Five Content – 2
• Pathways North 501(c)(3) – 1
• Pedro y el Lobo |  Audible – 1
• PEG & Studio71 – 1
• Pinna – 1
• Placement Theory – 2
• Plan B / Best Case / Audible – 1
• Podcamp Media – 2
• Posta & Erre Podcast – 1
• Produced by What’s the Story Sounds for CBC – 1
• PRX – 1
• Public Opinion – 1
• Pushkin Industries – 1
• Qcode | ADOPTER Media – 1
• QCODE Media / Daylight Media – 1
• Radio Diaries – 1
• Radiotopia/PRX – 4
• Reverb – 1
• Roc Nation – 1
• Rococo Punch & Atlas Obscura & Myrtle Beach & Pushkin Industries – 1
• Rowhome Productions and Airwave – 1
• Rubrik | Nicole Perlroth | Pod People – 1
• Ruby – 1
• Se Habla Producciones, EITB Media  – 1
• SiriusXM  – 2
• SiriusXM & Team Coco – 1
• Sissy That Talk Productions – 1
• Slate – 2
• Snap Studios – 1
• Sonoro – 3
• SPEAK.STUDIO – 1
• Spotify Studios and The Wall Street Journal – 1
• SummerStory – 1
• Sumsub – 1
• Tenderfoot TV and iHeartPodcasts – 7
• Test Pattern – 3
• The Adam Friedland Show – 1
• The Atlantic – 2
• The Immigrant Productions and Audible – 1
• The Sonar Podcast Network – 1
• The Times and Sunday Times – 1
• Tokens Media – 1
• True Story Media – 2
• Turner Classic Movies – 1
• TYT – 1
• Unwell – 1
• WaitWhat – 1
• Wave Sports & Entertainment – 1
• We The Children Podcast – 1
• Who Can You Be Productions – 3
• WHYY – 1
• WNYC Studios – 1
• Wolf Entertainment, USG Audio, Dig Studios, and CBC – 3
• Wondery – 6
• Wondery, Vespucci – 2
• WUNC – 1
• Zeteo – 1
• Zibby Media – 1