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Chas Licciardello making Planet America great again

"If Hillary Clinton was President I would be on holidays right now!" admits ABC News host.

It may have kicked off in the run up to the Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney Presidential election in 2012, but Chas Licciardello is convinced ABC News show Planet America is still on air thanks to Donald Trump.

“I have absolutely no doubt, if Hillary Clinton was President I would be on holidays right now!” he tells TV Tonight.

“Having said that, I have always been of the opinion that when you get the election out of the way it gets better.  So I’m glad Trump gives us the opportunity to show that to everyone else.

“When the election is on all people care about are polls, who is going to win, some crazy ads. But the most interesting aspect of American Politics are the bad guys. There are so many dysfunctional, crazy bad guys and at the same time there are some amazing good guys as well.

“So it’s the ultimate reality entertainment, even without Trump.”

Licciardello, together with co-host John Barron, are now a weekly programme on ABC News despite the 2016 US election wrapping last November. But the rollercoaster ride that is the Trump Presidency is giving the show ongoing stories and fuelling Liccardello’s own fascination with American politics. Planet America is now one of ABC News’ highest rating shows, despite its modest budget.

“Everything changes with Trump every week and it’s a constant juggling act with ABC News making TV. Obviously it’s extremely under-resourced –despite what Pauline Hanson thinks. There are some very hard-working people but you’re always trying to do more with less,” he continues.

Licciardello attributes his obsession with US politics to growing up with the NBC Today Show broadcast overnight with the likes of Bryant Gumbel, Jane Pauley & Katie Couric, but it was the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton that cemented his interest.

“I am actually a lot more right wing than people think I am.”

It wasn’t until fellow Chaser Julian Morrow introduced him to John Barron that Planet America was put in motion.

“Politically John and I are quite different,” Licciaardello explains.

“I am actually a lot more right wing than people think I am. I’m kind of a libertarian –not a full libertarian, but more than most Australians.

“People who don’t actually listen to what I say just assume I am left because I’m on the ABC and I’m a bit loose and garrulous. But I‘m more conservative than John is.

“John is a very traditional, mainstream news consumer. He likes the New York Times and the Washington Post. But I am all about blogs, Twitter and new media. So that leads to a very different ethos of the kind of stories we are into.

“I complain about the media and ask ‘Why aren’t they covering this or that?’ John is a very good journalist and covers things in the way a journalist should. Whereas I am a terrible journalist but a good new-media kind of guy. So I think we work well in that respect.

“We have a philosophy of trying to cover a small number of topics well”

“I tend to like John doing the interviews. I lack fluency and I stutter, but what I am very good at it is crawling through reams and reams of data, which I can pull out later.”

That sees him reading and researching up to 16 hrs a day ahead of Friday morning records, specialising in stats, polls, and all things video.

“We have a philosophy of trying to cover a small number of topics well, rather than a lot of topics badly. We nominate 2 or 3 topics that we choose to focus on and cover it as well as we can.”

“The more boring the topic the more likely I am to throw in a joke.”

But remaining a Chaser at heart, Licciardello is always happy to include those looser moments too, giving the show a tonal balance.

“The dryer the topic the more you have to put something in to interest people. If I can throw in a little gag or a little bit of wit to make it more digestible I absolutely will. The more boring the topic the more likely I am to throw in a joke. But if something is really interesting I probably won’t throw any in at all because I don’t need to,” he says.

“I’m conscious we’re on ABC News so I don’t want to undermine the network!”

Planet America airs 9pm Fridays on ABC News and is replayed around 11pm on ABC.

6 Responses

  1. You don’t say… more Conservative than John? Well, judging by your main sources, it’s easy to see why you sympathise with Fascism, Chas. I noticed your bleak, ugly, right wing conservatism some time ago and… your “Dole/Kemp” t. Shirt during midterms makes the ideation that people may think you’re anything other than a supporter of Trumpist Fascism quite the ridiculous premise for such a proposition. I stopped watching Planet America the moment I realised that Chas was/is a fascist sympathiser.

  2. I try and get my US friends (who are most anti-Trump) to watch via the ABC PA page (not iView), but they don’t seem to feel anyone else’s views of American politics worthwhile- a real pity.

  3. I am a political junkie, so this is a show I watch. I was surprised when it went beyond the election, but with a gift like Trump it was a no brainer.

    If I was to make a suggestion then I would like to see more of the political differences between Australia and the US being highlighted by this show. It would appear to me that the US for all its faults has better checks and balances built into it political system, which would be good to explore. However I fully concede this is nerd territory.

    1. “It would appear to me that the US for all its faults has better checks and balances built into it political system …”

      In theory, yes. In practice, they do seem to have an awful lot of workarounds for them, which leads to using other workarounds to work around the earlier workarounds. And then everybody’s heads start to hurt…

      Say what you like about Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, but between its 500+ years of pre-democratic precedents & often hidebound rules, it does tend to make it a lot harder to pull off silly sidesteps like “executive orders” or “presidential pardons” or …

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