Planet America is an Australian television news program on ABC News. The program is co-hosted by John Barron, research associate at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, and Chas Licciardello (The Chaser), and premiered on 10 February 2012. The program was launched to cover American political news events ahead of the 2012 presidential election. The program continued airing weekly after the 2012 election, covering the week's news in American politics. In 2017, the Planet Extra series was created, with episodes uploaded to Planet America's Facebook page. In 2018, Planet America's time slot was increased to 45 minutes. In 2020, the program was moved to the prime time slot of 9.30pm on Wednesdays on the primary ABC TV channel with a half-hour runtime. Planet America's Fireside Chat, a spin-off show, premiered on 31 January 2020 on ABC News on Fridays at 8pm with a 45-minute time slot. The Planet Extra Podcast started on 14 February 2020, hosted by Chas Licciardello and Dr. David Smith. In 2021, the main show was moved to Fireside Chat’s timeslot, and extended to run for just under an hour. It started at 7:03pm (after ABC News Update) and consisted of four sections: a general American news section, an interview with a guest, a report by John Barron, and th... ()