Nightline (Euro Republics)

Nightline is a Euro Republican late night news programme screened on TV3. Airing since 1992, the show takes an in-depth look at the day's main headlines. Nightline includes live reports, international news, interviews & analysis. It also includes a preview of the next day's newspapers. It is arguably slightly more serious than sister show Three News. It usually airs at 11:35pm, but sometimes starts earlier or later. It's main competitor is ER Tonight. It runs every night of the week. Whilst it runs for 60 minutes from Sunday to Thursday, the Friday & Saturday editions of Nightline run for 30 minutes instead.

History
In September 1990, TV3 announced intentions to launch a late night news programme in 1991. Nightline was announced in May 1991 for an inital November 1991 debut. Due to scheduling issues, Nightline was held back until January 1992. The host of the show was to be ex-ETV reporter, Francis Lawley.

The first edition was broadcast on 5th January, 1992 at 11:05 pm, and initially garnered 6 million viewers, double the slot average (as primetime starts later in the Euro Republics, 11pm ratings are higher). Initially, Nightline lasted for 45 minutes.

In September 1992, the show was extended to 1 hour, and on some nights, Lawley was joined by The Euro Express editor Charlotte Richardson.

The budget for Nightline was boosted in 1994, by which time 10 million viewers tuned in to watch every night.

Around the same time, Nightline began Friday night specials, which tended to focus on one particular topic, usually one that had made headlines that week.

Starting in February 1995, Kim Ahmed joined Nightline as a co-host when Charlotte or Francis were absent. Previously, they had hosted the programme solo when one did not show up.

Another male co-host, Andrew Henley joined Nightline later in that same year. Henley was a permanent fixture, hosting the Friday edition of the show, in addition to the weather.

When TV8, a new news channel owned by the same company as TV3, launched in 1997, Nightline was simulcast on the channel.

In November 1997, TV3 announced a radical change to the channel lineup which would take effect in early 1998, and as part of the relaunch, Nightline would be revamped with a new studio, logo & crew. Taking over as main presenters would be Alex Chisholm (poached from ETV) alongside Claire Berry from newspaper Eurostar. Francis Lawley, Kim Ahmed, Andrew Henley & Charlotte Richardson all stayed on the show as reporters, presented weekend editions & covered for Alex & Claire when they were absent.

The last edition of Nightline under the old format was shown on 8th January, 1998, with the final Friday special one day later, documenting Nightline's history. Nightline was not broadcast over the weekend, with extra Three News bulletins taking the slot, before the new Nightline debuted on 12th January, 1998. Whilst a new theme tune was planned, it was cancelled at the last minute, leading to the 1992 theme tune initially remaining with the new look, with the theme tune from the Australian version used instead from November.