Season 43 • Episode 204
LatestWhat’s behind your ethically certified coffee?; Dwayne Johnson talks about going rogue in latest DC film; Taylor Swift drops her tenth studio album, ‘Midnights’
Nightline, or ABC News Nightline, is a late-night news program that is broadcast by ABC in the United States, and has a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. Created by Roone Arledge, the program featured Ted Koppel as its main anchor from March 1980 until his retirement from the program in November 2005. Nightline airs weeknights at 12:37 a.m. Eastern Time, after Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It previously ran for 31 minutes, but in 2011, the program was reduced to 25 minutes. When the program moved to 12:37 a.m. ET, the program was expanded to 30 minutes. In 2002, Nightline was ranked 23rd on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Direction
Roone Arledge invented the modern TV newsmagazine format here.
Production
That iconic black void set—minimalist before minimalist was cool.
Writing
Koppel's opening monologues were basically TED Talks with actual stakes.
Creator
Roone Arledge
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Nightline was born from the Iran hostage crisis—ABC literally created it because they needed to keep covering the story after evening news ended. It was supposed to be temporary.
Ted Koppel once did an entire episode from a moving train just to prove he could. Peak 'I'm the main character' journalism energy that somehow worked.
US
