Three News

3 News (formerly known as Three National News from 1989 to 1998) is the branding of news programmes on the Euro Republican television network TV3.

The channel's news coverage has won awards from the Royal Television Society, Emmy Awards and Euro Television Awards. Between 2004 and 2008, the 7.30pm bulletin held the title of "News Programme of the Year". The flagship evening edition has won numerous awards, and also being named "ETA News Programme of the Year" in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 & 2022.

Three News has the largest television news audience in the Euro Republics (and followed by other broadcasters such as ETV & Prime).

History
The TV3 main evening news bulletin was originally launched in April 1989, where it was originally known as Three National News, and was presented by former ETV news anchor Clint Jennings, joined by sportscaster John Sherry and weathercaster Janet Hayton.

Initally, the bulletin went out at 7pm, clashing directly with ERTV's 7 o'Clock News, until January 1991, when - in the wake of the Gulf War - the bulletin was extended from 30 to 60 minutes, making use of TV3's rights to use footage sourced from the BBC, ITN and CNN. Following the war, TV3 continued with the one hour format, with the second half incorporating sport and national weather.

TV3 used the hour-long Three National News as a unique selling point over The 7 O'Clock News which remained as a 30 minute bulletin, although it ran in a 1-hour slot from 1995 to 2003.

During the nine years in which it was known as Three National News, the flagship programme had three hosts. Clint Jennings quit the programme in 1991 to move back to ERTV, presenting the current affairs programme Agenda which aired at 7.30pm to compete with the hour long TV3 programme. Paul Bradby took over as the main presenter of Three National News at the same time, before leaving in 1997, with Carol Patterson presenting the final year of the original brand.

As part of a rebranding of TV3 on Monday 12th January 1998, Three National News recieved a major rebranding, with the brand being shortened to simply 3 News. For the first time, the bulletin was double headed with two presenters giving out the news and sport, in addition to a weather presenter. Clint Jennings made a dramatic comeback to TV3 after being dismissed from ERTV amid interest from Prime, alongside Carol Patterson.

3 News regularly rebranded during this time period - but keeping the same music all the time. The studio set also remained with little change from 3 National News, heavily made up of wood and world maps, inspired by sets used by American local and cable news. The main change was switching from a light blue studio colour scheme to a mix of purple, brown, gold and green.

There was a small refresh to the studio set in January 2002, with the switch to a darker, modern and more classy black, blue and silver colour scheme.

In September 2002, Clint Jennings became the sole host of the main evening news, as Carol Patterson joined TV3's The Midday Report as it's main presenter.

TV3 announced in January 2003 as part of it's annual plan that the network had began to plan to relaunch it's news output to debut at some point within the next two years - after a 18-month public consultation test and research by ERN that took place throughout late 2001 and 2002 - as part of the company's shift to further adapt and futureproof itself for the 2000s, stated that the design of TV3's news output was "old-fashioned" in comparison with the branding used on ERN's other productions including The Rundown and The Latest, the 24-hour news channel TV8, and broadcasters including the BBC, whose 1999 news revamp proved highly influential for it's theme music by David Lowe and distinctive branding, from Lambie-Nairn.

In response to this, TV3 commisioned Lambie-Nairn and Dutch composer Stephen Emmer (whose father was himself a newscaster for NOS Journaal) to transform the brand style of 3 News. The entire style of the programme was given an overhaul, and whereas previous looks were always designed with an American feel in mind, the new look would break away from this trend and carry more of a European influence. The serious and orchestral music was replaced by with a more modern theme tune with electronic drums, bass and beeps. Variations on the new branding and music would also be used on TV8 and The Rundown.

A state-of-the-art news centre would also be constructed as an extension to the Television Centre in Euro City, for use 24 hours a day on TV8, with multiple studios and presentation points to be used on Three News, The Latest and The Rundown.

Despite initally being planned for September 2004, this was later delayed when in July 2003 it was announce that Clint Jennings was to retire from newscasting in December 2004.

Amid tons of speculation, it was announced in May 2004 that replacing Jennings as host of the main evening programme from January 2005 would be John Evans, who would join as chief presenter of TV3 News from his role as the main presenter of ZTV's irreverent current affairs programme The Latest.

Carol Patterson also announced in October 2004 she was to leave Three News to join ETV from January 2005. As a result, ERN announced it was to invest heavily in building up a new team of high-profile presenters for Three News, and that the revamp was indefinitely postponed until the new presenting team could begin. This meant that The Midday Report went on a nine-month hiatus, replaced with five-minute Three News bulletins at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm, read by the on-duty newscaster who would also read the existing 11am bulletin during This Morning.

John Evans made his debut on Three News on Monday 3rd January 2005. As the year progressed, ERN - which by then had merged with ITN, retaining their separate brand names as divisions, poached journalists including Sir David Frost and Stephen Cole from the BBC, Andrew Gordon from ETV News and Julian Tate from 3FM Newsbeat, to join the Three News team, and behind the scenes, Stewart Purvis joined as editor in-chief, Nick Pollard as executive producer for all of ERN's bulletins across TV3, ZTV and TV8 overseeing editorial content and talent, whilst BBC and TVNZ director Andy Jacquet, set designer Simon Jago and Nicky Schiller, producer of BBC News' 60 Seconds and The 7 O'Clock News joined as joint creative directors leading graphic design, music and studio set design.

ERN and ITN began intending to set up a 24-hour European news channel to compete with Euronews, pooling the resources of TV3, The Latest, The Rundown, TV8, ITV News and Channel 4 News. It would replace TV8 and the ITV News channel, with flagship programmes presented from Euro City and London by presenters including Jon Snow, Mark Austin, John Evans and Austin Kay. This idea was later retracted in favour of a plan to strengthening their domestic operations in each country, with a view towards merging said brands at somepoint a few years later, and sharing programmes.

After a year long delay, the new look branding, music, graphics and set for Three News, Nightline, TV8 bulletins and The Rundown was finally launched on Monday 5th September 2005, with Andrew Gordon taking over from John Evans who moved to present the Monday to Thursday editions of Nightline, with Stephen Cole taking over as the main presenter for a relaunched edition of The Midday Report. Cole also permanently took over the daytime bulletins, which remained after the relaunch. Sir David Frost's new Sunday morning discussion show, Frost in Focus - began the previous morning in a simulcast between TV3, TV8, ITV1 and the ITV News channel, and Julian Tate took over as the main weekend presenter of Nightline on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.