Americast

Americast is the authoritative US news and politics podcast from the BBC.

Each week we provide audiences with the best analysis from across the BBC, with on-the-ground observations and big picture insights about the stories which are defining America right now.

The podcast is hosted by trusted BBC journalists including the BBC’s North America editor, Sarah Smith, BBC Radio 4 presenter, Justin Webb, the BBC’s disinformation and social media correspondent, Marianna Spring, and BBC North America correspondent, Anthony Zurcher.

As well as political analysis, we also specialise in social media. Each week Marianna Spring brings listeners the latest updates from the BBC’s Undercover Voters, our award-winning investigation into the content that is recommended to US voters on social media.

The team is also joined by special guests each week, like CNN anchor, Christiane Amanpour, Emmy Award-winning TV host, Rachel Maddow, and Succession actress, J Smith-Cameron.

Podcasts are published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As well as being a podcast, we are also available every Friday night on BBC Radio 4 and every weekend on the BBC News Channel.

Every Monday we answer your questions on Americanswers, with some help from special guests, including Miles Taylor, who was chief of staff at the Department for Homeland Security during the Trump presidency before becoming a whistleblower.

Got a question or a comment? Get in touch with us on email at Americast@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480.

By the way, you can now listen to Americast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say ‘”Ask BBC Sounds to play Americast”. It works on most smart speakers.

See ya’ll later…

Hosted on BBC

This podcast may use tracking and attribution, dynamic content insertion and is insecure

Stats: Statistics are produced by BBC to help Americast to understand how many downloads it is getting, or how many people are listening. Your device’s IP address and user agent is used to help calculate this figure. Here is more detail about podcast statistics.

Tracking and attribution: BBC or its partners may connect the fact you listened to this podcast to an action elsewhere on the internet. For example - it may spot a device that downloaded an episode of Americast later visited the website of an advertiser; or it may track that a device that listened to Americast also listened to a different show. This form of attribution is used to measure advertising effectiveness.

Dynamic content insertion: BBC may use limited data that they know about you - the device you’re using, the approximate location you’re in, or other data that can be derived from this, like the current weather forecast for your area - to change parts of the audio. Americast may do this for advertising or for other forms of content, like news stories.

Americast is able to use the above tools since its podcast host or measurement company offers this service. It doesn’t mean that this individual podcast uses them, or has access to this functionality. We use open data.

This uses an insecure connection. This podcast uses an HTTP, not HTTPS, address for its audio files. These are not encrypted, and may allow people who can see your internet traffic - like your internet service provider, employer or even your government - to know that you listen to this podcast.

Here’s more about insecure links and unique domains.

In the news

BBC Sounds reveals their top 10 most popular podcasts of 2023 with podcast listening up 34% on the platform (Dec 28 2023)
BBC Studios Launches BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts in 166 new countries across the world (Nov 28 2023)

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