ER Tonight

ER Tonight is a Euro Republican television news and current affairs programme that has been on air since 1979, currently airing on Network Two and previously on ETV1 (then known as ERTV1) prior to September 1987.

It takes an in-depth, analytical look at the day's major headlines and special investigations and interviews often always from a Euroish viewpoint, as well as taking a more "media savvy" approach to the news with a nightly roundup of world news programmes and discussion of media based affairs.

History
ERTV announced in 1978 it's intention to launch a regular late night news and current affairs programme that would compliment the populist Seven O'Clock News by offering a weighty, insightful look into world news. The programme would run at midnight for an hour.

The move was initally seen as controversial by ERTV technical staff and reporters, who were against the idea of working long hours not being let free until after 1.00 am when the proposed programme (and ERTV 1 itself, with the new programme set to be the channel's last programme of daily transmission) would come off air,

The plans were then halted, reviewed and revised by ERTV, before the programme was reannounced in March 1979, now with the official title "ER Tonight" that would run in a flexible, hour-long slot each evening after the end of main primetime programmes on ERTV 1, typically between 10.30 and 11.30 pm.

ER Tonight finally made it's debut on ERTV 1 on Monday 3 September 1979 at 11.05 pm. The programme combined the serious political reporting angle as seen on programmes like Panorama with a traditional news format, and it's first presenter was Glenn Horrocks, who presented a controversial edition of the programme in 1973 interviewing then-prime minister Eamonn Giles.