60 Seconds

60 Seconds is a Euroish short-form news programme that runs between shows on TV4. It's branding is closely alligned to TV4 News.

Format
Each edition of the programme lasts for exactly one minute as the name suggests, during which time a condensed summary of the day's news, sport and entertainment stories are read out by a single presenter.

60 Seconds currently runs each day from 8am until 1am, seven days a week, only taking a break on 25th December, Easter Sunday and New Year's Day.

History
Channel 4 began the process of launching a new, regular and fast paced news bulletin in mid to late 1997, when the channel hired Chris Shaw in July 1997 - launch editor of 5 News in Britain - to produce what was then provisionally titled Newsbeat, a set of hourly news updates between programmes, comparable to the short 2-3 minute news bulletins that appear at the top of the hour on most commercial radio stations and some of the EBC's radio stations.

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31st August 1997 saw Channel 4 pilot the idea of a short hourly news update on events.

As Newsbeat was already the title of the regular news bulletins on the EBC's youth radio station 3FM, ending up in the programme being renamed 60 Seconds by October 1997, with the one minute runtime decided on at the same time. It was officially announced in November that it would launch in January 1998.

The bulletin was set to launch on 26th January 1998, although technical problems pushed the launch back by two weeks to 9th February 1998, with the first edition shown at 8pm.