The 7 O'Clock News

History

Pre-launch

As a condition of approval for the launch of BBC Three, the station had to carry an early evening nightly news programme, in addition to the existing 60 Seconds bulletins and Liquid News that had been carried on BBC Choice, the channel's predecessor.

The News Show was first revealed as the programme title in September 2002, and the primary presenter was confirmed in January 2003 as Julian Worricker, who had joined from BBC Radio 5 Live's breakfast show which he had left the month prior. Alongside him were to be Tazeen Ahmad and Sangita Myska. It was also announced the programme would broadcast on weeknights at 7:45 pm.

The News Show

The programme was broadcast for the first time on 10 February 2003, the second night of BBC Three's transmissions, with Julian Worricker and Tazeen Ahmad presenting the first edition. Julian Worricker was replaced on the programme in April by Ben McCarthy with Worricker returning to 5 Live in July, this time as the mid-morning presenter.

Just two months into the programme's existence, it found itself in a difficult situation as it was reported ratings for The News Show were so low that BARB registered the programme as having 0 viewers during the Iraq war.

The 7 O'Clock News

As part of a schedule reshuffle on 7 July 2003, the programme was moved to the 7:00 pm timeslot and rebranded as The 7 O'Clock News, now becoming the first programme to broadcast on BBC Three each evening after handing over from the CBBC channel. Liquid News was moved to 8:00 pm on the same evening, having previously run in said timeslot.

It was announced in January 2004 that The 7 O'Clock News would be revamped sometime that year as a half-hour programme intended to become BBC Three's early evening equivalent to Newsnight, the late evening current affairs programme broadcast on BBC Two. It was announced in March 2004 that PM presenter Eddie Mair would front the revamped programme.

The relaunched version of The 7 O'Clock News with Mair was launched on 10 May 2004. In addition to the new presenter and extended runtime, there was also a new logo and a larger studio set.

A report into the BBC's digital output authored by Professor Patrick Barwise released in October 2004 was highly critical of the programme, saying that it "achieves nothing and attracts tiny audiences" and that it should be replaced by new science, current affairs and business programmes.

For two weeks starting on 14 March 2005, The 7 O'Clock News was moved to a new timeslot, 8:30 pm, and was temporarily rebranded as BBC3 News. This was to make way for the satirical show The Comic Side of 7 Days and episodes of Liquid Assets (a spin-off from the by-then defunct Liquid News) which filled the 7:00 pm slot during the two-week period. After this period was over, the programme returned to 7:00 pm and regained its previous title.

Axing

The BBC announced on 21 October 2005 that The 7 O'Clock News had been axed and would broadcast its final edition at the end of the year. This was caused by the heavy criticism of the programme in the Barwise report and the BBC's own research undertaken earlier that year. Stuart Murphy, the BBC Three controller said the show had "fought its corner" against "intense competition". He stood down from the role of BBC Three controller the day before the programme was axed.

The last edition of The 7 O'Clock News was broadcast on 2 December 2005, and would be replaced by "high quality factual programming" for 2006. BBC Three continued to provide news output with 60 Seconds which continued until the linear channel closed down in February 2016. Since its return to linear television in 2022, BBC Three's news output is made up of a short-form youth-oriented bulletin known as The Catch Up.