Nightline (or ABC News Nightline) is ABC News' late-night television news program broadcast on ABC in the United States with 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 in November 2005. Its ongoing rotating anchors are Byron Pitts and Juju Chang. Nightline airs weeknights from 12:37 to 1:07 a.m., Eastern Time, after Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which had served as the program's lead-out from 2003 to 2012.
In 2002, Nightline was ranked 23rd on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. The program has won four Peabody Awards, one in 2001, two in 2002 for the reports "Heart of Darkness" and "The Survivors," and one in 2022 for "The Appointment".
Through a video-sharing agreement with the BBC, Nightline repackages some of the BBC's output for an American audience. Segments from Nightline are shown in a condensed form on ABC's overnight news program World News Now. There was also a version of Nightline for sister cable channel Fusion.
The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage (1979) The program began on November 8, 1979, four days after the start of the Iran hostage crisis. ABC News president Roone Arledge figured that the best way to compete against NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was to update Americans on the latest news from Iran. At that time, the show was called The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage: Day "xxx", where xxx represented the number of days that Iranians held the occupants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran as hostages. At first, World News Tonight lead anchor Frank Reynolds hosted the 20-minute special reports.
Shortly after its creation, Reynolds stopped hosting the program. Ted Koppel, then ABC News's State Department Correspondent, took on the hosting duties. A few days later a producer had the idea of displaying the number of days on America Held Hostage (e.g., Day 15, Day 50, Day 150, etc.).
Ted Koppel's Nightline (1980–2005) By the end of the hostage crisis in 1981 (after 444 days), the program – which had been retitled the previous year as Nightline – had entrenched itself on ABC's programming schedule, and made Koppel a national figure. ABC had previously used the title "Night Line" for a short-lived 1 a.m. talk show starring Les Crane that was broadcast over the network's New York City flagship station, WABC-TV, starting in 1963.
The program originally aired four nights a week (on Monday through Thursdays) until 1982, when the sketch comedy program Fridays was shifted to air after Nightline. By this time, the news program had expanded to 30 minutes. For much of its history, the program prided itself on providing a mix of investigative journalism and extended interviews (something that continues to be featured to this day, albeit at a reduced extent), which would look out of place on World News Tonight.
The format of the show featured an introduction by the host, then a taped piece on the specific topic of the night; then after a commercial break, there was a live interview related to the topic of the piece. In 1983, ABC attempted to change the program's format to feature multiple topics and expand it to one hour, as opposed to focusing on a single topic in a half-hour. This switch proved to be unsuccessful, and after a few months, the original format of the program was restored. Once the original format returned, reverting to a 31-minute structure, it remained unchanged through the end of Koppel's tenure; it was changed following his retirement.
The program remains unique in American media, considering its nightly broadcasts. Most other similar shows only air once a week, though usually in a prime time slot for a full hour. Nightline is usually less sensationalistic than the weekly news magazines (which often emphasize soft news programming, stories of such type – such as pop culture-related stories – Nightline has incorporated to a moderate degree following Koppel's departure), though the program has caused controversy on occasion.
In 1982, Koppel interviewed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chief Yasser Arafat on the program, in which he had indicated that he would not accept conditions from the U.S. to recognize the PLO. In 1984, the program featured an interview with Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, marking his first live television appearance. In honor of the 40th Anniversary of D-Day in 1984, Nightline aired a special edition which "covered" the landings on Normandy as though modern television news, along with satellite reports, had existed at the time. The following year in 1985, the program conducted its first on-remote broadcast from South Africa.