The Guardian announces today that political editor Anushka Asthana will become the host of its new daily news and current affairs podcast. It will launch by the end of the year and take listeners behind the headlines.
Anushka Asthana is currently The Guardian’s joint political editor and her career includes senior political correspondent at Sky News, Peston on Sunday, chief political correspondent and columnist at The Times, and policy editor at The Observer.
The Guardian has hired six new audio journalists to produce the podcast, which will run each weekday. The podcast will bring listeners closer to the Guardian’s award-winning journalism and will be an essential part of the Guardian’s daily offering across its digital platforms.
The Guardian has hired Leo Hornak as the podcast’s executive producer. Leo is an award-winning journalist with experience making documentaries and news for BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service and This American Life.
The new podcast team includes deputy executive producer Nicole Jackson, an award-winning Guardian producer and director who previously worked as features editor on Guardian Weekend magazine and as a commissioning editor on G2, the Guardian’s daily features section; India Rakusen, who joins from BBC Digital Current Affairs as senior producer; and Mythili Rao, from The New Yorker Radio Hour, as lead producer. A further three new audio producers have also been hired for the podcast: Joshua Kelly, Elizabeth Cassin and Rachel Humphreys.
The Guardian is working with Acast as its official audio advertising partner and the launch advertiser will be Bose, producers of headphones and speaker systems.
The Guardian has been creating podcasts for more than a decade, with 10 podcast series currently running and a diverse back catalogue.
The Guardian’s Football Weekly is consistently in the top 5 sports podcasts on iTunes. During this summer’s World Cup games, the Football Daily podcast was the most downloaded Guardian podcast, with 3.2 million downloads.
The Guardian produced 550 podcast episodes in the last year. The most popular Guardian podcasts include Football Weekly, Politics Weekly, Science Weekly, Brexit Means, A Neuroscientist Explains, The Reckoning, Culture Podcast, Books Podcast, Small Changes, The Start, Chips with everything, and Audio Long Reads.
Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media said:
“I am confident that The Guardian’s daily news podcast will become essential listening in our readers’ busy lives, bringing them even closer to our award-winning journalism. I can’t wait to hear Anushka every day - her broadcast experience and accessible style makes her the perfect host.”
David Pemsel, chief executive, Guardian Media Group said:
“More than 50% of The Guardian’s revenues are now digital. This significant investment in audio journalism is an important part of our strategy to develop deeper relationships with our audiences and grow new revenue streams.”
Christian Bennett, executive editor of multimedia for The Guardian, said:
“The Guardian has been making award-winning podcasts for over a decade - the word “podcasting” was even coined here. The new team bring with them a wealth of audio journalism experience, ensuring our new podcast will be a fresh listen, with high production values.”
Anushka Asthana, podcast host, said:
“People are busy, but they want a deeper understanding of the world. We’ll be delving further into the big stories and cutting through the noise to take our listeners behind the headlines.”
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Notes to editors
For more information please contact: media.enquiries@theguardian.com or 020 3353 3696
About Guardian News & Media
Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com, one of the world’s leading English-language newspaper websites. Traffic from outside of the UK now represents around two-thirds of the Guardian’s total digital audience. In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week, first published in 1821, and the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
The Guardian is renowned for its agenda-setting journalism including, most recently, the Paradise and Panama Papers investigations as well as the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-winning NSA revelations.
About Guardian Media Group
Guardian Media Group (GMG) is amongst the UK’s leading media organisations. Its core business is Guardian News & Media (GNM), publisher of theguardian.com, one of the largest English-speaking quality newspaper websites in the world. In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week and the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
GMG has also built an endowment fund, which includes the proceeds from its disposal of its holdings in Trader Media Group in 2014 and Ascential plc in 2016-17. The sole purpose of the fund is to secure the editorial independence and financial security of the Guardian in perpetuity. The business conduct of the Group is guided by The Scott Trust values.
For further information visit www.theguardian.com/gmg
This press release was amended on 12 September 2018 because this will not be The Guardian’s first ever daily news podcast, as an earlier version said. Jon Dennis presented a daily news podcast from 2006 to 2010 called Newsdesk, and later Guardian Daily.