The World Tonight (Philippine TV series)

The first ABS-CBN era (1966–1972)

The World Tonight premiered on November 21, 1966 at 8:30pm on CBN's DZXL-TV Channel 9 (predecessor of ABS-CBN) as the network's answer to ABC's Big News, The News with Uncle Bob on RBS, and NewsWatch on RPN. The World Tonight became the first Philippine television newscast to broadcast in color. Co-anchoring the newscast were Hal Bowie, a veteran announcer from ABS-CBN radio, Eric Eloriaga, and Henry Halasan, a former ABS-CBN Cebu talent who was transferred to the network's main offices in Manila as a sales executive. Bowie, who was in his 70s when the newscast first aired, later bowed out of the newscast due to health reasons and concentrated instead on producing news reports for the network. This left Halasan and Eloriaga as main anchormen of the program.

The program was transferred to its sister station, ABS' DZAQ-TV Channel 3 on the 10:00pm time slot a year later when ABS-CBN formally merged. This happened when Channel 9 premiered Newsbreak with Bong Lapira, who transferred from rival newscast Big News on ABC. The newscast continued after Channel 3 moved to the present Channel 2 and Channel 9 moved to Channel 4 for Metro Manila in 1969 until ABS-CBN's closure by the Marcos government during the declaration of martial law on September 22, 1972 with his sign Proclamation No. 1081.

The roster of field reporters for the newscast in its pre-Martial Law days included Orly Mercado, Jun Bautista, Antonio Seva, Tony Lozano, Boo Chanco, Philip Pigao, Lito Tacujan and Danny Hernandez.

Castro-Legarda/Second ABS-CBN era (1986–1996)

The World Tonight returned on September 15, 1986, coinciding with the reopening of ABS-CBN after the People Power Revolution. It was anchored by Larry Ng (an ABS-CBN executive during the pre-Martial Law era), Angelo Castro Jr. (then the network's news director) and Loren Legarda who came from anchoring rival newscast NewsWatch on RPN with Harry Gasser. Ng left the newscast after a while, and was replaced by Korina Sanchez. However, Sanchez eventually left the newscast to concentrate on hosting the morning show Magandang Umaga (later Magandang Umaga Po), leaving Castro and Legarda as main anchors, with Ces Oreña-Drilon (business), Cathy Yap-Yang (business) and Dyan Castillejo (sports) joined in 1992 as segment anchors. Sanchez returned as an anchor but only on Saturday Edition along with Castro, Drilon, Castillejo with additional segments by Angelique Lazo (entertainment) and Bon Vibar (alternating anchor with Castro). The weekend edition was replaced by The Weekend News in 1996 which was also an English newscast until 1999 when it was switched to Filipino language after The World Tonight ended due to low ratings.

Sarimanok News Network/Castro-Palma era (1996–1999)

Even it still airs on ABS-CBN, The World Tonight started to simulcast on the network's 24-hour cable news channel Sarimanok News Network launched on May 1, 1996. On October 6, 1997, Tina Monzon-Palma replaced Loren Legarda and joined Angelo Castro Jr. to the newscast when Legarda ran and later won as the top senator in the this year's elections. Palma was used to anchor rival newscasts GMA Headline News (on GMA Network) from 1986 until 1992 and The Big News (on the reopened ABC, now TV5) from 1992 to 1997.

However in late 1998, the ratings of English late-night newscasts including The World Tonight started to decline when rival GMA introduced Filipino language late-night news with the relaunch of GMA Network News, anchored by Mike Enriquez and Vicky Morales; it debuted as an English newscast in 1992 and switched to Filipino with the relaunch, surging ahead of the ratings game in the process. This prompted ABS-CBN management to either swap timeslots with that of early-evening newscast TV Patrol, or move their English news reporting to either SNN or sister station Studio 23, which was airing News Central at the time.

The World Tonight made its final broadcast on the ABS-CBN television network on August 13, 1999. It was then replaced by the network's first Filipino-language late-night newscast, Pulso: Aksyon Balita anchored by Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon. The show competed with Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco, which replaced GMA Network News on August 2, 1999.

The ABS-CBN News Channel era (1999–present)

Two months later, The World Tonight premiered solely on the ABS-CBN News Channel on October 11, 1999 due to the channel's relaunch. Angelo Castro Jr. and Tina Monzon-Palma still remained as anchors at that time. The program continues to be one of the channel's flagship newscasts.

On March 12, 2001, as part of the major programming changes of ABS-CBN, The World Tonight relaunched to its graphics along with other ANC and ABS-CBN newscasts.

Castro retired as a news anchor on September 2009, as Palma went solo. However, he later returned on November 7, 2011 on a sporadic basis until December 26 of that year. He died on April 5, 2012 of lung cancer at the age of 67. Despite his death, Tina Monzon-Palma continued as the sole anchor until now.

On January 12, 2015, 3 days before the Philippine visit of Pope Francis, The World Tonight reformatted as part of the "internationalization" of the ABS-CBN News Channel and move to an earlier timeslot at 9:00pm and expands into a 1-hour newscast to compete with State Of The Nation of GMA News TV & CNN Philippines Nightly News of CNN Philippines, among other newscasts on the timeslot. New segments & reports with original content were also aired during the launching day.^[1]

On November 21, 2016, The World Tonight celebrated its 50th anniversary. Also this year, ANC marked its 20th anniversary. As part of the celebration of the two important milestones for the channel, an ANC X event was held at 8 Rockwell on December 7, 2016 which was attended by ABS-CBN executives, past and present anchors of The World Tonight and ANC, and prominent members of the business community. A documentary on the history of "The World Tonight" was aired on ANC on December 30, 2016.^[2]

On January 23, 2017, The World Tonight returned to its original 30-minute running time in order to give way to the new sports newscast, Gametime, that occupied the current last 30 minutes of the program.

On March 30, 2017, Palma left the newscast for currently sabbatical leave reasons. Tony Velasquez replaced her as its new anchor.

On January 29, 2018, Palma returns to the newscast after almost a 10 months of her sabbatical leave.