Abacat's What If's/The 7 O'Clock News

**The 7 O'Clock News** is a British news programme. It is the main news programme broadcast each weekday at 7:00pm, on British television channel BBC Three.

Presented by Tina Daheley and Ben Mundy, The 7 O'Clock News has a completely different image and style of presentation to traditional BBC News programmes, with a multicoloured colour scheme in contrast to the standard red and white. Presenters begin bulletins standing but ended seated, reviewing the newspapers towards the end of the programme.

## History

As a condition of approval in 1997, BBC Three was required to include an evening news programme within it's schedules. The programme launched on 3 November 1997 with Scott Chisholm from shock jock station Talk Radio UK as the main host. In this era it was known as *Today Tonight* and aired at 8pm. Chisholm was offered the job after Julian Worricker (from BBC Radio 5 Live) and Adrian Chiles (presenter of BBC2's afternoon business programme *Working Lunch*) turned it down.

He had also proved himself to be flexible in regards to topics - hosting debates on UFO's, mathematics in primary school, child abuse and a regular 'Scambusters' feature. The contract for News on 3 stipulated that Chisholm and his production team would move to 5 Live.

David Yelland was hired by the BBC from The Sun to inject a populist flavour to BBC Three news.

Chisholm would present weeknight editons whilst the weekend bulletins were presented by Julie Etchingham. Huw Edwards and Sian Williams were regular stand-in presenters in the 1997-99 era.

The style of Today Tonight chose chose be tabloid rather than specifically "younger skewing", with nightly investigations and in-depth reports with a set emulating those of American "newscasts". The branding, music and set changed in 1999 to fit in with the new look BBC News.

Scott Chisholm departed the programme in 2000, and Julie Etchingham took over on a permanent basis, whilst Sian Williams became the main weekend presenter. By this point, Huw Edwards had moved on to BBC One news, and was replaced on Today Tonight by Susanna Reid.

A government report in 2001 deemed that BBC Three wasn't doing enough to serve the youth audience well, and ordered an overhaul of the channel, with new programmes and strengthened public service remits, including a completely revamped news proposition.

Today Tonight was a heavy current affairs programme produced by a team that included people who also worked on *Newsnight* and *The 9 O'Clock News*, with most editions including interviews and rehashed packages from *The 6 O'Clock News*, which was seen as "unsuited" to a youth channel.

Instead, the new look programme would have close ties to the successful *Newsbeat* service provided on the BBC's youth radio station BBC Radio 1 and children's news programme *Newsround*, with a mission be more creative with it's use of existing reports, by adding music and new graphics to further illustrate the headlines.

New hosts were found, Tazeen Ahmad, who had been presenting BBC Three's 60 Seconds since 2001, and Julian Worricker, breakfast presenter on BBC Radio 5 Live, were to be the new main presenters. Other reporters/presenters would include Sangita Myska from *Holiday* and Ben McCarthy, presenter of *Inside Out* on BBC Midlands. Susanna Reid would remain with BBC Three for the new programme, whilst Sian Williams would leave BBC Three but continue at BBC News.

There would also be a new look and sound to the programme, designed to be pacier than the usual BBC News "pips" that BBC Three had been using since 1999.

It was also decided that the new brand would also replace the 15 minute Newsbeat programmes on Radio 1, alongside the same music, produced by Music4. The new brand and programme was announced on 29th November 2002 to be titled *The News Show,* to replace BBC Three News and Newsbeat (partially) on 6th January 2003. Claire Bradley, who broke the news of 9/11 on Radio 1, would present the 12.45 Radio 1 programme, whilst the 5.45 programme would be fronted by Dominic Byrne.

Newsbeat would continue after the launch, but as a brand for the short updates, with the main programme relaunched as The News Show. BBC Three would relaunch two weeks after the launch of The News Show, with new idents and other new programmes. The News Show would play a major part in the new factual schedule for BBC Three, which would also include *Liquid News* at the new time of 7pm, hourly one minute updates branded as *60* *Seconds* and Monday night current affairs strand *The* *Third* *Degree*.

The new sound of The News Show launched as Newsbeat in the morning of 6th January 2003 at 5.30am on Radio 1. The new name for the programme itself launched on radio at 12.45pm, and the main TV programme with Worricker and Ahmad on BBC Three at 7.45pm.

The new branding paid off, and the first televised edition garnered a total of 600,000 viewers, good for BBC Three, with the brand exposed to millions more via Radio 1. The editorial style took a "media savvy" approach by taking a look at world television news bulletins (often complete with their own theme music) and investigating how different media sources can distort some headlines.

Whilst it originally ran at 7:45pm, it was moved to 7pm in July 2003, followed each evening by *The* *News Show Extra*, a daily programme looking more in-depth at a major story of the day, in addition to Liquid News at 8.30pm, returning to it's original time.

The programme was relatively successful, but in an attempt to further differentiate itself from the then normal style of youth focused news, a revamp was announced in January 2004, which would reposition The News Show as a 'hard news' show but aimed towards a younger audience than *Newsnight*.

Eddie Mair, presenter of BBC Radio 4's *PM* afternoon programme, was announced as the new host in March 2004 of what would be renamed *The 7 O'Clock News* alongside Tazeen Ahmad. The News Show brand would live on in the form of a new late bulletin at 11pm on BBC Three. The News Show Extra would be axed.

The 7 O'Clock News with Mair and Ahmad launched in 2004, and whilst it initially had hopes of being a more serious, hard hitting programme, the new programme instead, unintentionally, became a quirkier, more casual and conversational look at the headlines, alongside in-depth investigations and continuing The News Show's heavy focus on the media and broadcasting news, a nightly discussion about how the news is reported around the world.

The new format was a success, and was heralded as a "fresh take on the headlines" and "a smart, witty alternative to conventional news programmes." There were talks of doubling the programme's length to 60 minutes to take on Channel 4, and/or moving it to BBC Two, but these both came to nothing.

However, a "Best of the 7" programme would be shown on the weekends on BBC News 24, alongside stronger coverage of elections, with *Three's Liquid Election* in 2005, which brought together the teams from Liquid News and The 7 O'Clock News, fronted by Eddie and Tazeen alongside Claudia Winkleman talking to celebrity guests about their political lives and Paddy O'Connell asking for the youth's verdict for the nation's choice throughout the country. There was also satire and skits. This also proved popular and has became a channel tradition for every election and major referendum since.

Tazeen Ahmad left the programme in December 2007, and was replaced in January 2008 by New Zealand-born producer and reporter Lucy Hockings.

The programme was rebranded on 12th February 2008 to co-incide with the channel rebrand. At the same time, *The News Show* was renamed as *The 11 O'Clock News*.

Eddie Mair left the programme in 2010 and was replaced by Paddy O'Connell, who had covered for him on the programme several times prior.

The 7 O'Clock News, The 11 O'Clock News and Liquid News moved to New Broadcasting House on 14th January 2013, and the branding was updated, keeping the basic logo design but with a longer opening title sequence. Meanwhile, The 11 O'Clock News continued to use the shorter variation.

The programme was planned to rebrand as Newsbeat in 2014 to unify the channel's news department with BBC Radio 1, but the plans were shelved for the main bulletins with the 60 Seconds news updates renamed Newsbeat instead, in January 2015.

In 2016, Lucy Hockings was fired from The 7 O'Clock News on the grounds "she didn't represent multicultural Britain" and was given 15 minutes notice that she would be replaced by Tina Daheley, who was increasingly raising her profile at the BBC.

The BBC offered Hockings to instead join BBC World, where she remains to this day presenting *Live with Lucy Hockings*.

When BBC Three rebranded on 3 March 2019, the programme's branding was given a complete overhaul the day after, making use of the then new BBC Reem font, and lower thirds in the style used by *The Nine* that had launched on BBC 2S weeks prior, alongside dropping the circle motif used in one form or another by BBC Three News since 2003. The sound of the programme was also updated once more, keeping the same basic motif introduced in 2003 to this day.

The branding was tweaked once again on 20th October 2021, swapping out the pink with a green/blue/purple scheme to fit in with the new look channel.

## Presenters

* Julian Worricker (2003-09)
* Tazeen Ahmad (2003-07)
* Sangita Myska (2003-05)
* Ben McCarthy (2003-08)
* Susanna Reid (2003-2007)
* Sevan Bastajian (2003)
* Eddie Mair (2004-2010)
* Paddy O'Connell (2004-2020)
* Naga Munchetty (2006-2008; 2010-2013)
* Clare McDonnell (2007-2020)
* Lucy Hockings (2008-2016)