BBC Nine O'Clock News

The BBC Nine O'Clock News was the flagship BBC News programme launched in 14 September 1970, which ran until 1 October 2000 when it was controversially moved to BBC News at Ten.

The first week was presented by Robert Dougall, followed by Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall, each presenting five consecutive nightly bulletins. The choice of these three was significant as it echoed the first BBC television (in-vision) bulletins of 1955, which they had also presented.

Other famous presenters have included John Edmunds, Peter Woods, Richard Whitmore, Angela Rippon, Jan Leeming, John Humphrys, John Simpson, Sue Lawley, Julia Somerville, Moira Stuart, Nicholas Witchell, Martyn Lewis, Michael Buerk, Peter Sissons, George Alagiah.

The first Nine O'Clock News was screened on 14 September 1970, having replaced The Main News (at 20:45) in a response to the launch by ITN of the News at Ten. It was the first bulletin to have a closing set of music, other bulletins would link to the weather at the end instead. The set used by the bulletin was designed to differentiate from the day's bulletins, for example in the 7 September 1981, the Nine O'Clock bulletin had a wooden effect whereas bulletins used a plain blue background instead.

In 12 April 1993, as part of a relaunch of all the BBC News bulletins which created a more uniformed look, the bulletin was the only one with variety, having a darker set and more authoritative title music. A larger relaunch of all the BBC News output came in 9 May 1999 when the programme once again shared a common theme and set with the daily programmes.

Between 10 May 1999 - 1 October 2000, the programme would be advertised as the BBC News at Nine.

On final BBC Nine O'Clock News was presented by Peter Sissons.

The show was carried on BBC1 and inspired a 16 October 1979 - 8 March 1982 BBC2 comedy show running in the same timeslot to take the name Not the Nine O'Clock News.