If there was any doubt that late-night TV continues to make a huge impact on the digital landscape, one need look no further than this year’s Webby Award nominations.
The nominees and honorees for the 2024 Webbys were revealed yesterday, and content from late night personalities account for dozens of the recognitions. Perhaps in recognition of that fact, the awards ceremony itself will be hosted by a familiar face from late night.
Amber Ruffin, former host of Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show and a writer/performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers, announced on Meyers’ show this week that she’ll be hosting the event.
The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel lead the late-night nominees this year, with each getting nods in five different categories, while The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live were nominated in four categories a piece.
Now in its 28th year, The Webby Awards are, in a word, quirky. Winners are challenged to accept their awards with a five-words-or-less acceptance speech, while the category name and eligibility requirements are a bit arcane.
Jimmy Kimmel is nominated in five categories. His show’s social channels are nominated in the Comedy Social and Best Overall Social Presence categories. The JKL YouTube Channel is nominated in both the Entertainment Video category and Best Web Personality/Host category. Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel’s personal social presence is nominated in the Celebrity/Fan class.
The Daily Show earned five Webby noms, including Best Video Remix/Mashup and Best Video Writing. Desi Lydic was nominated for Best Individual Performance for “Foxsplains: Trump’s Indictment.” The TDS YouTube channel is also nominated in the Variety Video Channel category. Lastly, the Daily Show-branded podcast “Hold Up with Dulcé Sloan & Josh Johnson” is up for Best Comedy Podcast.
Sloan & Johnson’s podcast faces stiff competition from a late-night veteran: three-time Webby winner “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” is nominated in the same category.
The Daily Show’s short-form video “Marjorie Taylor Greene on 60 Minutes” was also named an honoree. (The Webbys names “honorees” in each category that don’t make the cut for official nominations.)
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’s “Teenie Weenie Beanie with Paul Rudd”, “Super Mario Brady Box”, and “The Jimin Experience” each earned nominations in different video categories. Fallon himself was also nominated for Best Web Personality/Host, where he’s up against the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel. That makes four official nominations for Fallon’s Tonight Show, but the program was also named an honoree in two other categories: Best Overall Social Presence and Best Social Video Series.
Saturday Night Live garnered four nominations, including Best Overall Social Presence. SNL also earned nominations for its YouTube channel, the Live Show Coverage on its Instagram Stories, and the SNL Monologue Live Stream. (The show’s branded partnership with T-Mobile was also named as an honoree for Initiative, the marketing agency behind it.)
Even Strike Force Five took home a nom. The late night supergroup podcast that Fallon, Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver co-hosted during last year’s writer’s strike was nominated for Best Limited Series Podcast. Strike Force Five is also an honoree in the Interview/Talk Show Podcast category, and its “Strike Force Wives!” episode (the fan-favorite installment in which Fallon fails to produce a game show segment) is an honoree for Individual Comedy Podcast Episode.
The 28th Annual Webby Awards winners will be announced on April 23, and Ruffin will host the awards ceremony on May 13th. Fans can vote in the show’s People’s Voice categories on the Webby Awards website now.