Channel 8 News

Channel 8 News & Current Affairs is a department which produces news, current affairs, and info-ed programmes for two Mediacorp channels aired in Mandarin, Channels 8 and U.

Prior to 2010, the news were presented in three timeslots - News 8 At One (Chinese:1点新闻), which airs daily; Singapore Today (Chinese:狮城6点半), and News 8 at 10. (Chinese:10点新闻). With the reduction of MediaCorp News Group employees and the increased demand for more variety programme content on Channel U, MediaCorp announced that the news programmes on Channel U would end with effect from 29 March 2010. News 8 at 10 would then air at 11.00pm there, as a new title called News Tonight (Chinese:晚间新闻).

Beginning from 20 October 2014, Hello Singapore (Chinese: 狮城有约) would take over Singapore Today on weekdays, with news segments at 6.30pm and 7.00pm, it was broadcast live while Reach For The Skies took over the 7.30pm time slot on weekdays.

Channel 8 News starts broadcasting on new headquarters 1 Stars Avenue starting 13 March 2017, leaving old headquarters Caldecott Hill after the broadcast of "News Tonight" on 12 March 2017 which it was based there for many years before the move. This move also brings an overall change for news graphics, subtitles, and the upgrade of hardware.^[1]

Presentation

There are different news presenters every day for news programmes. There are two news presenters on the weekday version of News Tonight, but mostly a single presenter presents the news in every timeslot. Highlights of the day's news are shown in a ticker found on the left side of the screen on Channel 8, and in the form of a commentary during the credits of the weekday 9.00pm drama.

Exceptions

The news timeslots are mostly fixed. However, there are some exceptions:

• On National Day (9 August), Hello Singapore (weekday) or Singapore Today (weekend) would be moved earlier to facilitate the broadcast of the National Day Parade.
• On the day of the National Day Rally, Singapore Today would be presented at 6:15pm, 15 minutes earlier before the broadcast of the Malay and Mandarin speeches at 6.45pm.
• News Tonight is not presented on Polling Day of the Singapore General Elections.
• There are no commentaries for News Tonight on Channel U, as well as on 21 Channel 8 drama series. They are, in order of

Airdate:

Commentaries would continue to be heard at the end of the drama series during the credits, regardless of production company (e.g. Wawa Pictures, Mediacorp Studios Malaysia), if there are no featurettes, promotions, theme songs or snippets. The Ultimatum was the first drama series to air without commentaries, while Crescendo became the first non-Mediacorp Studios produced drama to air without commentaries. Hero was the first show with neither of the 4 conditions to have no commentary but only for the first episode, subsequent episodes had commentaries.

• Channel U aired its first "live" edition of News Tonight at 11:00pm on 5 May 2013. This is the first time Channel U did so in three years, to present the live results of the 2013 Malaysian general election.
• During the period of National Mourning from 23 to 29 March 2015 in lieu of the death of Lee Kuan Yew, all MediaCorp channels presented the highlights and latest news regarding Mr Lee. There is a change to the music at the start and end of every news programme, to a much melancholic tune. All programmes aired on MediaCorp channels were also pre-empted for a week, to air the latest news regarding Mr Lee. There was also a 15-minute special edition of News 8 at One on 28 March 2015 (Saturday).

Filmography

Presenters

• Zhao Quanyin (赵全胤)
• Zhao Wenbei (赵文蓓)
• Wang Zheng (王征)
• Lin Chi Yuan (林启元)
• Zhang Haijie (张海洁)
• Tung Soo Hua (董素华)

Accolades

Gallery

Take note that not all news anchors are shown.

• News anchors gallery
• 
  Evelyn Lam 蓝丽婷
• 
  Jiang Huan 蒋睆
• 
  Kristine Lim 林稚瑛
• 
  Lin Chi Yuan 林启元
• 
  Yang Zhenhua 杨振华

References