ER Tonight

ER Tonight is a Euro Republican television news and current affairs program, airing on Network Two (with a delayed airing on Mix and TV1) on its current form since 1994, although it had several predecessors before its establishment.

It is designed for a younger audience than the one of ETV News, taking on a more laid back approach than it’s more serious counterpart, airing on a daily basis at 10:30pm, mostly lasting between 45-75 minutes.

Eyewitness News (1983-1988)
The programme began on ERTV 2 as Eyewitness News on April 1, 1983. It was a more serious in-depth look into the day’s headlines.

EyeWitness (1988-1994)
On May 6, 1988, Eyewitness News rebranded as EyeWitness. It was now hosted on a desk with 3 presenters instead of 2.

Newsnight (1994-2003)
On November 17, 1993, Network 2 announced that EyeWitness would end in 1994 and gave way to Newsnight, which would focus more on human intrest stories aimed at teens and young adults. Newsnight began on Febuary 7, 1994, after EyeWitness ended the Friday prior and was an immediate success and gained a huge cult following, and high ratings often gaining the No. 1 most watched slot. A graphics refresh was launched on January 1, 1995, and would stay with the show until 2002. In 1997, the studio was upgraded to a full blown newsroom, shared with ETV News. In 2002, for the first time in 7 years, Newsnight rebranded with an urban theme.

News 2 (2003-2006)
On January 4, 2003, the controller of Network 2, Marcus Riley, announced that Newsnight was cancelled and was to be replaced with a new nightly news programme called News 2. There was outcry from Newsnight fans about the change, to the point where even a petion was launched to save the show, to no avail. News 2 began on May 12, 2003 and was heavily focused on video games and the internet with news pushed back to a five minute slot at the start, ratings plummeted and had bad reception, Network 2 announced in 2004 that they deeply regreted cancelling Newsnight. It was decided on May 6, 2006 to axe News 2.

Nightline (2006-2013)
On May 6, 2006, It was announced that News 2 would be axed. The replacing show, Nightline, was to be faithful to Newsnight, having a similar logo, a remix of the Newsnight theme, and most former presenters were brought back. Nightline launched on June 1, 2006.

International
In the UK, it was broadcast on BBC 2 from 1988 to 1997 and BBC News 24 from 1997 to 2012. It was briefly shown on BBC One in 2001 as Newsnight Euro Republics.