Newsnight

Image: The first Newsnight presenters; Fran Morrison, Peter Snow, David Davies and Charles Wheeler.

The first edition of Newsnight, the BBC's flagship news and current affairs programme, was broadcast on 30 January 1980. It brought the news and current affairs departments together for the first time, with the aim of offering more in depth coverage of the day's news.

The main stories covered on the first edition were Mrs Thatcher's attempts to get a rebate of British contributions to the EEC; proposed restrictions to secondary picketing and curbs to trade union power; the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; allegations of brutality by prison officers in Wormwood Scrubs following a peaceful sit-in by prisoners. The main presenter was Peter Snow, with Fran Morrison reading the news and weather, and David Davis the sport.

Newsnight began at a regular time of 10.45, but then spent several years wandering the schedules until 1988, when it settled into the 10.30 timeslot it holds to this day. Among many ground breaking reports and scoops there have been some bizarre moments, which contribute to the programme's character. One such was when Jeremy Paxman interviewed Abaddon, the lead singer of death metal band Venom, and enquired "Is it Mr Abaddon?"

When, in May 1997, Jeremy Paxman confronted the former Home Secretary Michael Howard over the controversial dismissal two years earlier of the head of the Prison Service, Derek Lewis, it instantly became a cause célèbre of political interviewing. Newsnight is recognisably the same programme it was in 1980 and continues to influence the news agenda, even as it attempts to make sense of the day’s events.