The World Tonight

"The World Tonight" is a British current affairs radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 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 or Ritula Shah, but makes frequent use of other presenters, including Anne MacKenzie (who also presents Newsnight Scotland) 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 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 Radio had a weekdaily newscast entitled "The World Tonight" in the 1980s, anchored by Christopher Glenn. 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 , shown on the Channel "BBC Twelve".

"The World Tonight" is also a 1984 music track by the act The Human League, which was the B-side to the single Life On Your Own, although it is not obviously linked with the radio programme.