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The World Tonight

 

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The World Tonight



 
 
The World Tonight is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 current affairs
Current affairs

Current affairs is*Current affairs : a genre of broadcast journalism* an approximate synonym for...
 radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10pm news. It features news, analysis and comment on domestic and world issues. It is usually presented by either Robin Lustig
Robin Lustig

Robin Francis Lustig is a BBC journalist and radio broadcaster who currently presents programmes for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4.After studying politics at the University of Sussex, Lustig became a foreign correspondent for the European news agency Reuters and was based in the Spanish capital, Madrid, later moving to Paris and Ro...
 or Ritula Shah
Ritula Shah

Ritula Shah is a journalist and news presenter on BBC Radio. As of January 2009, she is a regular presenter of The World Tonight, the Saturday edition of PM , and Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, and The World Today on the BBC World Service....
, but makes frequent use of other presenters, including Anne MacKenzie
Anne MacKenzie

Anne Erica Isobel MacKenzie is an award winning BBC political and current affairs presenter.MacKenzie worked as a newscaster between 1981 and 1997....
 (who also presents Newsnight Scotland
Newsnight Scotland

Newsnight Scotland is an award winning BBC television news programme which started on Monday October 4, 1999. The programme is aired from BBC Scotland's HQ in Glasgow, and is an opt-out of the main London-based Newsnight programme....
) and presenters from World Service programmes.

History
The programme began in the 1960s or early 1970s, made by a team which also produced Newsdesk, a 30-minute 7pm show for Radio 4 which as its name implies was a news roundup.






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Encyclopedia


The World Tonight is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 current affairs
Current affairs

Current affairs is*Current affairs : a genre of broadcast journalism* an approximate synonym for...
 radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10pm news. It features news, analysis and comment on domestic and world issues. It is usually presented by either Robin Lustig
Robin Lustig

Robin Francis Lustig is a BBC journalist and radio broadcaster who currently presents programmes for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4.After studying politics at the University of Sussex, Lustig became a foreign correspondent for the European news agency Reuters and was based in the Spanish capital, Madrid, later moving to Paris and Ro...
 or Ritula Shah
Ritula Shah

Ritula Shah is a journalist and news presenter on BBC Radio. As of January 2009, she is a regular presenter of The World Tonight, the Saturday edition of PM , and Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, and The World Today on the BBC World Service....
, but makes frequent use of other presenters, including Anne MacKenzie
Anne MacKenzie

Anne Erica Isobel MacKenzie is an award winning BBC political and current affairs presenter.MacKenzie worked as a newscaster between 1981 and 1997....
 (who also presents Newsnight Scotland
Newsnight Scotland

Newsnight Scotland is an award winning BBC television news programme which started on Monday October 4, 1999. The programme is aired from BBC Scotland's HQ in Glasgow, and is an opt-out of the main London-based Newsnight programme....
) and presenters from World Service programmes.

History


The programme began in the 1960s or early 1970s, made by a team which also produced Newsdesk, a 30-minute 7pm show for Radio 4 which as its name implies was a news roundup. Newsdesk was highly unusual for the period because the scripts were written by current affairs rather than news staff. News and Current Affairs were then different departments of the BBC. The World Tonight was more typical, with the news staff jealously guarding the bulletin which occupied the first five or ten minutes of the show. Among the early presenters was Nick Ross
Nick Ross

Nick Ross is a British radio and television presenter across a wide range of factual programmes but is best known for his long-running co-hosting of the BBC TV show Crimewatch which he left on 2 July 2007 after 23 years....
 who, then in his twenties, was regarded as unusually young to anchor such a highbrow show. The World Tonight and Newsdesk were part of what were known as the three sequences, with Today occupying the morning slot, the World at One and PM straddling the afternoon, and Newsnight and The World Tonight rounding up the evening. There was always rivalry between the sequences, with The World Tonight losing its crown to World at One in the days of Andrew Boyle and William Hardcastle, and Today being considered top dog since the 1980s.

Trivia

In the U.S., CBS
CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American radio network and television network. The name is derived from the initials of Columbia Broadcasting System, its former legal name....
 Radio had a weekdaily newscast entitled The World Tonight in the 1980s, anchored by Christopher Glenn
Christopher Glenn

Joseph Christopher Glenn was an United States radio and television news journalist who worked in broadcasting for over 45 years and spent the final 35 years of his career at CBS, retiring in 2006 at the age of 68....
. It ran for ten minutes, rather than five, like most CBS newscasts of the era.

A fictional television programme entitled The World Tonight appeared in Kubrick/Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, shown on the Channel BBC Twelve.

"The World Tonight" is also a 1984 music track by the act The Human League
The Human League

The Human League are a British people synthpop band. Formed in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in 1977, they achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s....
, which was the B-side to the single Life On Your Own
Life on Your Own

"Life on Your Own" is a song by the British Synthpop group The Human League. Written jointly by lead singer Philip Oakey, Keyboard players Jo Callis and Philip Adrian Wright, it was recorded at Air studios between 1983-1984....
, although it is not obviously linked with the radio programme.