''Lateline'' was an Australian television news program which ran from 1990 until 2017. The program initially aired weeknights on ABC TV. In later years it was also broadcast internationally throughout Asia and the Pacific on the Australia Plus Satellite Network, and on the 24-hour ABC News Channel.
The flagship current affairs program developed a longstanding reputation for setting the agenda of the following days' news across the continent. It was well known to feature head-to-head debates on current issues, hard hitting political interviews, and attracted the appearance of many world leaders in industry, politics and media. It was labelled by the influential Australian online website
Crikey
Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in '' T ...
magazine as being, "an unmissable current affairs program that almost certainly creates more headlines in the next day's newspapers than any other TV show in the country." The program's late timeslot in AEST benefited enormously from its favourable alignment with overseas correspondents.
History
When ''Lateline'' premiered on 13 February 1990, it was a thirty-minute single-topic debate forum hosted by Kerry O'Brien, broadcast nationally on ABC-TV from Canberra. Airing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in 1990 and 1991, and expanding to Monday to Thursday from 1992 onwards, the program opened with a short video piece examining the perceived most compelling topic at hand in news and current affairs on the given day with disciplined, journalistic balance. O'Brien then followed the video with a moderated debate between two and four participants for the duration of the program. It was later hosted by
Maxine McKew
Maxine Margaret McKew (born 22 July 1953) is a former Australian Labor politician and journalist; she was the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the First Rudd Ministry and the F ...
who retired from broadcasting in 2006 to pursue a political career with the Australian Labor Party. Later hosts included Tony Jones,
Leigh Sales
Leigh Peta Sales (born 10 May 1973) is an Australian journalist and author, best known for her work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Ali Moore, and
Emma Alberici
Emma Alberici (born 3 February 1970) is an Australian journalist and former foreign correspondent who was the chief economics correspondent for the ABC Television (Australian TV network), Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television network ...
.
The most notable aspect of the format when it premiered was that many guests appeared via satellite. Whether in the studio or on the other side of the world all the guests would appear as 'remote', on TV monitors beside the host. The time slot of the program greatly improved the prospective line up of the overseas contributors and enabled the show to interpolate the Australian perspective with relevant, international viewpoints.
In 2000, the program was moved from Canberra to the TV network's headquarters in Sydney. ''Lateline'' thereafter incorporated the ''ABC Late News'', a ten-minute news-break style rundown of the day's top stories and important events from the day.
In October 2017, ABC announced that after 28 years ''Lateline'' would be cut as the broadcaster launches new investigative and specialist journalism teams. The management of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
announced the termination of the ''Lateline'' program, after 28 years on air, on 5 October 2017, though assuring its full resources until the end of the Australian TV season in December of the same year. The Corporation's news and current affairs chief, Gaven Morris, cited the demise of the program as being due to changes in audience preference and digital disruption from the internet. The Australian non-commercial broadcaster has proposed a new approach to in-depth, investigative reporting, also announcing a new program and improved multi-platform support for other, existing programs.
Presenters, reporters, and producers
The show was hosted by
Emma Alberici
Emma Alberici (born 3 February 1970) is an Australian journalist and former foreign correspondent who was the chief economics correspondent for the ABC Television (Australian TV network), Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television network ...
in its final years. Alberici was appointed as the co host of the program with Tony Jones in 2012.
Esteemed reporters on the program included
Margot O'Neill
Margot O'Neill (born 16 May 1958) is an Australian journalist, writer and producer. She founded Original Thinking Productions, a multi-platform content provider after leaving the ABC in 2019 where she was a journalist for over 25 years. O’Ne ...
, John Stewart, Kerry Brewster, Ginny Stein, Jason Om, Jamie Cummins, David Lipson, Barbara Miller, and
Matt Wordsworth
Matt Wordsworth is an Australian television presenter.
Wordsworth is currently weeknight presenter of '' ABC News Queensland'' in Brisbane.
Wordsworth attended Brisbane State High School.
Career
In January 2018, it was announced he was chose ...
Mark Colvin
Mark Colvin (13 March 1952 – 11 May 2017) was an Australian journalist and radio and television broadcaster for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and worked on most of the flagship current affairs programs. Notably, based in Sydne ...
,
Maxine McKew
Maxine Margaret McKew (born 22 July 1953) is a former Australian Labor politician and journalist; she was the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the First Rudd Ministry and the F ...
,
Virginia Trioli
Virginia Frances Trioli (born 16 August 1965) is an Australian journalist, author, radio and television presenter.
Trioli currently hosts the morning program on ABC Radio Melbourne in Melbourne. She has previously been co-host of the Australi ...
,
Leigh Sales
Leigh Peta Sales (born 10 May 1973) is an Australian journalist and author, best known for her work with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.Ali Moore,
Ticky Fullerton
Ticky Fullerton (born 2 November 1963) is an English-born Australian journalist and TV presenter. Fullerton has hosted '' The Business'' on ABC News 24, ''Ticky'' on Sky News Business Channel and Your Money. She was previously a fill-in presen ...
Walkley Awards
The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...
from ''Lateline'' include
Maxine McKew
Maxine Margaret McKew (born 22 July 1953) is a former Australian Labor politician and journalist; she was the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the First Rudd Ministry and the F ...
in 1998 and Tony Jones, who received Walkley awards for broadcast interviewing in 2004, 2007 and 2011. Reporter Suzanne Smith in 2005 won a
Logie Award
The Logie Awards (officially the TV Week Logie Awards; colloquially known as The Logies) is an annual gathering to celebrate Australian television, sponsored and organised by the magazine ''TV Week''. The first ceremony was held in 1959 as the ...
for "Most Outstanding News Coverage" for her story about sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities in the
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...
List of programs broadcast by ABC Television
This is a list of television programmes that are currently being broadcast or have been broadcast on ABC Television's ABC TV (formerly ABC1), ABC TV Plus (formerly ABC2 and ABC Comedy), ABC Kids (formerly ABC 4 Kids), ABC Me (formerly ABC3) o ...