Programme History
BBC Newsline is the most recent incarnation of BBC Northern Ireland's television news service, which began on 30 September 1957 as part of the BBC's roll out of regional TV opt-outs. The first five-minute bulletins, Today in Northern Ireland, were presented by Maurice Shillington and broadcast from a tiny radio studio within Broadcasting House in Belfast.
Up until the launch of Today in Northern Ireland, a networked topical magazine programme, Ulster Mirror', had been broadcast every fortnight since 26 November 1954. The daily bulletins were later expanded to ten minutes and supplemented by a magazine programme called Studio Eight first broadcast on 20 February 1959 with Robert Coulter as its presenter. Today in Northern Ireland was replaced on 17 September 1962 by a 20-minute programme initially known as Six O'Clock. The new longer news magazine programmes changed title to Six Five and Six Ten until Scene Around Six was introduced in January 1968.
Main presenters during the programme's history included Larry McCoubrey, Barry Cowan and Sean Rafferty. The launch of the national Six O'Clock News led to Scene Around Six being relaunched as Inside Ulster in September 1984 and moved to an earlier timeslot of 5.35pm.
The current Newsline brand was introduced on 12 February 1996 when the main evening programme returned to a 6.30pm timeslot. Although Noel Thompson and Lynda Bryans were the original choice of presenters, Thompson was later dropped causing Bryans to resign and move to UTV. The programme's first presenters were political editor Jim Dougal and reporter Yvette Shapiro. Dougal was replaced as anchor by Conor Bradford after two months. Newsline also introduced teletext subtitles for deaf viewers upon its launch.
Noel Thompson and Donna Traynor later became the programme's main presenting team until August 2012 when Thompson left to join BBC Radio Ulster. Newsline is now presented a single main anchor with Traynor presenting three nights a week and a rotating team of Sarah Travers, Jim Fitzpatrick and long-serving sports presenter Stephen Watson anchoring two nights a week.
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