Lateline
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the Australian current affairs television program. For the short-lived US sitcom, see LateLine (sitcom).
| Lateline | |
|---|---|
 Opening sequence from Lateline. |
|
| Genre | News and Current Affairs Programme |
| Picture format | 576i (SDTV) |
| Running time | |
| Starring | |
| Country of origin |  Australia |
| Original channel |  ABC TV |
| Official website | |
Lateline is a late night current affairs television program on ABC TV in Australia, similar in format to the BBC's Newsnight program in the United Kingdom.
The show usually is hosted by Tony Jones, with Maxine McKew assuming the role on Friday nights. Maxine McKew received a Walkley Award in 1998, and Tony Jones in 2004 for broadcast interviewing. Lateline is widely recognised for its even-handed overview of local and international politics, its head-to-head debates on current issues and its political interviews, often featuring leading experts in a setting that is user-friendly to the audience. Lateline 'punches above its weight' in Australian current affairs television: it has a relatively small audience, but is reputedly avidly watched by many members of the political and commercial fraternity. One reason for this may be that most other television news and current affairs are broadcast in the early evening, when most of these people are still at work.
When Lateline launched in the early 1990s it was a thirty-minute single-topic debate forum hosted by Kerry O'Brien, with Ian Carroll as Executive Producer and produced in Canberra. It opened with a seven-minute in-house video piece that attempted to examine the case in a balanced manner. This was followed by twenty minutes of the moderated debate between two to four guests. The most notable aspect of the format at the time was that many guests appeared via satellite. Whether in the studio or on the other side of the world all the guests would appear 'remote', on monitors. The rationale behind this was that an even-handed debate would be impossible if one side was on a satellite link (and sometimes with a disconcerting delay) while the other was sitting next to the presenter. This arrangement often led to the mildly comical spectacle of Kerry sitting in one corner of the barn-like studio, and one his guests sitting in the other corner, facing in the opposite direction.
In 2000, an ABC managerial shakeup resulted in the implementation of cost-cutting measures, and the programme was transferred to Sydney. Lateline was merged with the ABC Late News program, which was a ten-minute rundown of the day's top stories and important events that occurred during the evening. This ran immediately before Lateline.
The new Lateline format (now five minutes longer) includes news, plus approximately twenty minutes of interview. The pre-interview video segment has been eliminated.
In October 2006 Maxine McKew announced her retirement. A replacement is expected to be announced in the near future.
Lateline is followed by its sister program Lateline Business.
