The World Tonight (Philippine newscast)

The World Tonight

Titlecard used since January 12, 2015
Genre News, Live action
Created by ABS-CBN Corporation
Developed by ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs
Presented by Weekday anchors
Tony Velasquez
Weekend anchors
Gigi Grande
Ron Cruz
Theme music composer Ryan Cayabyab
(arranged by ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra)
Country of origin Philippines
Original language(s) English
Production
Executive producer(s) Luz Rimban (supervising producer)
Tina Monzon-Palma (managing editor)
Jove Francisco (executive producer)
Location(s) ABS-CBN Newscenter Manila
Quezon City, Philippines
Running time 30 minutes (1966–1972; 1986–2015; 2017-present)
1 hour (2015–2017)
Release
Original network ABS-CBN (1966–1972, 1986–1999)
ABS-CBN News Channel (1996–present)
Picture format 480i SDTV
1080i HDTV
Audio format Mono (1966-1972, 1986-1987)
Stereo (1987-present)
Original release ABS-CBN
First incarnation:
November 21, 1966 – September 22, 1972
Second incarnation:
September 15, 1986 – August 13, 1999
ABS-CBN News Channel
May 1, 1996 – present
Chronology
Followed by Newsbreak (DZXL-TV Channel 9/4)
Pulso: Aksyon Balita (ABS-CBN)
The Weekend News/ABS-CBN Weekend News (ABS-CBN, weekends)

The World Tonight is an English language late-night newscast of the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) and it was formerly the English language late-night newscast of ABS-CBN from November 21, 1966 to September 22, 1972 and from September 15, 1986 to August 13, 1999. It is aired at 9:00pm daily and anchored by Tony Velasquez on weekdays, and by Gigi Grande on Saturdays and Ron Cruz on Sundays.

The World Tonight holds the record as the longest-running English newscast on Philippine television after RPN's NewsWatch's demise in October 2012, although this is disputed since the newscast did not air from 1972 to 1986 due to ABS-CBN's closure because of the country's declaration of martial law..

Airing history

The first ABS-CBN era (1966–1972)

The World Tonight premiered on November 21, 1966 at 8:30pm on CBN's DZXL-TV Channel 9 (predecessor of ABS-CBN) as the network's answer to ABC's Big News, The News with Uncle Bob on RBS, and NewsWatch on RPN. The World Tonight became the first Philippine television newscast to broadcast in color. Co-anchoring the newscast were Hal Bowie, a veteran announcer from ABS-CBN radio, Eric Eloriaga, and Henry Halasan, a former ABS-CBN Cebu talent who was transferred to the network's main offices in Manila as a sales executive. Bowie, who was in his 70s when the newscast first aired, later bowed out of the newscast due to health reasons and concentrated instead on producing news reports for the network. This left Halasan and Eloriaga as main anchormen of the program.

The program was transferred to its sister station, ABS' DZAQ-TV Channel 3 on the 10:00pm time slot a year later when ABS-CBN formally merged. This happened when Channel 9 premiered Newsbreak with Bong Lapira, who transferred from rival newscast Big News on ABC. The newscast continued after Channel 3 moved to the present Channel 2 and Channel 9 moved to Channel 4 for Metro Manila in 1969 until ABS-CBN's closure by the Marcos government during the declaration of Martial Law on September 22, 1972 with his sign Proclamation No. 1081.

The roster of field reporters for the newscast in its pre-Martial Law days included Orly Mercado, Jun Bautista, Antonio Seva, Tony Lozano, Boo Chanco, Philip Pigao, Lito Tacujan and Danny Hernandez.

Castro-Legarda/Second ABS-CBN era (1986–1996)

The World Tonight returned on September 15, 1986, coinciding with the reopening of ABS-CBN after the People Power Revolution. It was anchored by Larry Ng (an ABS-CBN executive during the pre-Martial Law era), Angelo Castro Jr. (then the network's news director) and Loren Legarda who came from anchoring rival newscast NewsWatch on RPN with Harry Gasser. Ng left the newscast after a while, and was replaced by Korina Sanchez. However, Sanchez eventually left the newscast to concentrate on hosting the morning show Magandang Umaga (later Magandang Umaga Po), leaving Castro and Legarda as main anchors, with Ces Oreña-Drilon (business), Cathy Yap-Yang (business) and Dyan Castillejo (sports) joined in 1992 as segment anchors. Sanchez returned as an anchor but only on Saturday Edition along with Castro, Drilon, Castillejo with additional segments by Angelique Lazo (entertainment) and Bon Vibar (alternating anchor with Castro). The weekend edition was replaced by The Weekend News in 1995 which was also an English newscast until 1999 when it was switched to Filipino language after The World Tonight ended due to low ratings.

Sarimanok News Network/Castro-Palma era (1996–1999)

Even it was still airing on ABS-CBN, The World Tonight started to simulcast on the network's 24-hour news channel ABS-CBN News Channel, then known as the Sarimanok News Network from its launch on May 1, 1996. On February 4, 1998 Tina Monzon-Palma replaced Loren Legarda and joined Angelo Castro Jr. to the newscast when Legarda ran and later won as the top senator in the next year's elections as a member of Lakas-NUCD-UMDP. Palma was used to anchor rival newscasts GMA Headline News (on GMA Network) from 1986 until 1992 and The Big News (on the reopened ABC, now TV5) from 1992 to 1998.

However in late 1998, the ratings of English late-night newscasts including The World Tonight of ABS-CBN started to decline when rival GMA introduced Filipino language late-night news with the relaunch of GMA Network News, switching its language from English to Filipino and was anchored by Mike Enriquez and Vicky Morales, since it was debuted as an English newscast in 1992 and Morales also, she was one of the original anchors in English. It was fasten to higher when it was switched to Filipino. Thus, the ABS-CBN management needed to move the said newscast to early evening slot and TV Patrol would move to late-night or move their English news reporting to its 24-hour cable news channel ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) and to its sister station Studio 23 airing News Central during that time. The World Tonight made its final broadcast on the ABS-CBN television network on August 13, 1999 when it was replaced by the network's first Filipino-language late-night newscast, Pulso: Aksyon Balita anchored by Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon to compete with GMA's Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco which was the replacement of GMA Network News and was premiered two weeks ago on August 2, 1999. Newspapers have published letters from people disgusted with ABS-CBN's new late-night newscast while the network itself has been deluged with letters and phone calls asking for the return of The World Tonight. But the most tangible proof of the newscast’s loss of viewership has been the household ratings, which by its second month had dipped to seven percent from its start of 18 percent. Both The World Tonight and rival ABC's Big News were the final television newscasts that were identical to the current Malaysian, Indian, Singaporean and South African TV news programs in multiple languages including English, ending the golden age of English-language television broadcast in the Philippines. This was the start of both ABS-CBN and GMA as all-Tagalog networks with rival ABC joined in 2004 with Big News switching from English to Filipino and starting the dawn of the 21st century and the third millennium by airing late-night news in Filipino language on television today. Following the axing of ABS-CBN's English language news reporting on the flagship free television network, most are UHF television networks had their own English newscasts. However for ABS-CBN executives, are either unfazed by the reactions or as yet unwilling to accept defeat. “Birth pains” is how the network's self-proclaimed ideas man Jake Maderazo calls the negative feedback. Its corporate communications head Patricia Daza, for her part, would rather describe the dissenters “the loud minority” among the loyal viewers of The World Tonight, the uppercrust AB audience who, she says, have the time and the capacity to write letters or make phone calls to Channel 2. When ABS-CBN decided to axe The World Tonight, the network did not take into consideration to the six million other viewing households outside Metro Manila. The newscast's former executive producer, Ging Reyes, also notes that most of those who protested or lamented the loss of the program were viewers from the provinces. She confirms, “They’re not reflected in the ratings”.

The ABS-CBN News Channel era (1999–present)

Two months later, The World Tonight premiered solely on the network's 24-hour news channel ANC on October 11, 1999 due to the channel's relaunch. Angelo Castro, Jr. and Tina Monzon-Palma still remained as anchors at that time. The program continues to be one of the channel's flagship newscasts.

On March 12, 2001, as part of the major programming changes of ABS-CBN, The World Tonight relaunched to its graphics along with other ANC and ABS-CBN newscasts.

Castro retired as a news anchor on September 1, 2009, as Palma went solo. However, he later returned on November 7, 2011 on a sporadic basis until December 26 of that year. He died on April 5, 2012 of lung cancer at the age of 67. Despite his death, Tina Monzon-Palma continued as the sole anchor until now.

On January 12, 2015, 3 days before the Philippine visit of Pope Francis, The World Tonight reformatted as part of the "internationalization" of the ABS-CBN News Channel and move to an earlier timeslot at 9:00pm and expands into a 1-hour newscast to compete with State of the Nation with Jessica Soho of GMA News TV & CNN Philippines Nightly News of CNN Philippines, among other newscasts on the timeslot. New segments & reports with original content were also aired during the launching day.[1]

On November 21, 2016, The World Tonight celebrated its 50th anniversary. Also this year, ANC marked its 20th anniversary. As part of the celebration of the two important milestones for the channel, an ANC X event was held at 8 Rockwell on December 7, 2016 which was attended by ABS-CBN executives, past and present anchors of The World Tonight and ANC, and prominent members of the business community. A documentary on the history of "The World Tonight" was aired on ANC on December 30, 2016.[2]

On January 23, 2017, The World Tonight returned to its original 30-minute running time in order to give way to the new sports newscast, Gametime, that occupied the current last 30 minutes of the program.

On March 30, 2017, Palma Left the newscast for unknown reasons. However Velasquez will be solo anchor.

Weekday anchors

Weekend anchors

Former anchors

References

  1. ↑ http://www.medianewser.com/2015/01/ancs-world-tonight-to-move-to-earlier.html
  2. ↑ "50 years of ‘The World Tonight,’ ANC Leadership Awards launched". Manila Standard. December 16, 2016. Retrieved December 20, 2016.
  3. ↑ http://news.abs-cbn.com/life/03/27/17/teddy-locsin-jr-says-farewell-to-the-world-tonight
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