''The World Tonight'' is a

Philippine television Television in the Philippines was introduced in October 1953 upon the first commercial broadcast made by Alto Broadcasting System (now ABS-CBN), making the Philippines the first Southeast Asian country and the second in Asia to do so. Even ...

news broadcasting show broadcast by

ABS-CBN ABS-CBN is a leading Philippine media and content company. It serves as the flagship media brand of ABS-CBN Corporation, a subsidiary of Lopez Holdings Corporation. Once the country's largest free-to-air television network, ABS-CBN has since ...

, ANC and

Kapamilya Channel Kapamilya Channel () is a 24-hour Filipino pay television network owned and operated by ABS-CBN Corporation, a subsidiary of Lopez Holdings Corporation. Its headquarters is located at the ABS-CBN Broadcasting Center in Quezon City and serves ...

. Originally anchored by Hal Bowie and Henry Halasan, it aired on ABS-CBN's evening line up from November 21, 1966 to September 22, 1972, and was replaced by ''BBC/City2 Balita Late-Night Edition''. The newscast returned on the network's evening line up from September 15, 1986 to August 13, 1999, replacing ''BBC/City2 Balita Late-Night Edition'' and was replaced by ''Pulso: Aksyon Balita''. The show began broadcasting on ANC on May 1, 1996, followed by a broadcast on Kapamilya Channel on July 27, 2020, replacing ''

Bandila ''Bandila'' () is a Philippine television news broadcasting show broadcast by ABS-CBN. Originally anchored by Korina Sanchez, Henry Omaga-Diaz and Ces Drilon, it aired on the network's Primetime Bida line up from July 3, 2006, to March 17, 2 ...

'' and ''

Tonight with Boy Abunda ''Tonight with Boy Abunda'' is a Philippine television talk show broadcast by ABS-CBN. Hosted by Boy Abunda, it aired on the network's Primetime Bida line up from September 28, 2015 to May 4, 2020, replacing '' Aquino & Abunda Tonight'' and was ...

''. Tony Velasquez and Pia Gutierrez currently serve as the anchors. It is the longest-running news broadcasting show in the Philippines.

Airing history

The early years (1966–1972)

''The World Tonight'' premiered on November 21, 1966, at 8:30 PM on

's DZXL-TV Channel 9 as the network's answer to

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

's '' The Big News''. ''The World Tonight'' became one of the first Philippine television newscasts to broadcast in color. Co-anchoring the newscast were Hal Bowie, a veteran radio announcer and TV news anchor, and Henry Halasan, a former ABS-CBN Cebu station manager who was transferred to the network's main offices in Manila as a sales executive. Halasan coined the newscast's title after the program in the United States named, ''The World Today''. Bowie, who was in his 70s when the newscast first aired, later bowed out of the newscast for health reasons and concentrated instead on writing and producing news reports for the network. This left Halasan as main anchorman of the program. The program was transferred to its sister station, DZAQ-TV Channel 3 on the 10:00 PM timeslot a year later. This happened when Channel 9 premiered the half-hour daily evening news program called ''Newsbreak'' in March 1, 1967 at 9:00 PM with Bong Lapira, who transferred from rival newscast ''The Big News'' on ABC-5. The newscast continued after Channel 3 moved to the present Channel 2 for Metro Manila in 1969 until ABS-CBN's closure by the Marcos government during the declaration of

martial law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

on September 22, 1972, with his sign

Proclamation No. 1081 Proclamation No. 1081 was the document which contained formal proclamation of martial law in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos, as announced to the public on September 23, 1972. The proclamation marked the onset of a 14-year peri ...

. The roster of field reporters for the newscast in its pre-Martial Law days included

Orly Mercado Orlando "Orly" Sanchez Mercado (, born Orlando Mercado y Sanchez; April 26, 1946) is a Filipino politician and broadcast journalist best known for having served as a Senator of the Philippines from 1987 to 1998, Secretary of Defense from 199 ...

, Jun Bautista, Antonio Seva, Tony Lozano, Boo Chanco, Philip Pigao, Lito Tacujan and Danny Hernandez.

Revival; Legarda-Castro era

''The World Tonight'' returned on September 15, 1986, coinciding with the reopening of ABS-CBN after the

People Power Revolution The People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution or the February Revolution, were a series of popular Demonstration (people), demonstrations in the Philippines, mostly in Metro Manila, from February 22 to 25, 1986. There was a ...

. 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 Lorna Regina "Loren" Bautista Legarda (born January 28, 1960) is a Filipina politician, environmentalist, cultural worker, and former journalist who is currently serving as a Senator and served as the president pro tempore of the Senate of the ...

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 Korina Maria Baluyut Sanchez-Roxas (; born October 5, 1964), known professionally as Korina Sanchez, is a Filipino broadcast journalist, television news anchor, senior field reporter, magazine show host, radio anchor, and newspaper columnist. ...

. However, she eventually left the newscast to concentrate on hosting the morning show ''Magandang Umaga'' (later ''Magandang Umaga Po''), leaving Castro, Legarda, and Amy Godinez (who left in 1991) as main anchors. On May 4, 1992, the newscast introduced a new set (also shared with ''

TV Patrol ''TV Patrol'' is a Philippine television news broadcasting show broadcast by ABS-CBN, Kapamilya Channel, A2Z and All TV. Originally anchored by Noli de Castro, Mel Tiangco and Robert Arevalo, it premiered on March 2, 1987, on the netw ...

'') and theme music as well as introducing

Ces Drilon Cecilia "Ces" Victoria Oreña-Drilon (; born July 8, 1961) is a Filipino broadcast journalist. She anchored news and public affairs programs for the News and Current Affairs division of ABS-CBN Corporation from 1989 to 2020. From 2018 to 2020 ...

(or

Cathy Yap-Yang Catherine Yap Yang (born February 1, 1971) is a Filipina business journalist who has worked in various international news outfits across the Asia-Pacific region over the course of 15 years. She is currently the Head of Programs at Cignal TV, Inc. a ...

for Business), and Dyan Castillejo (for Sports) as their new segment anchors. Sanchez returned as an anchor but only on Saturdays along with Castro (or Bon Vibar as his substitute), Drilon, Castillejo with additional segments by Angelique Lazo (entertainment). It was replaced by ''The Weekend News'' in 1996. On December 4, 1995, ''The World Tonight'' relaunched its studio set, news desk, and graphics which became permanent until 1999.

Transition into cable; start of Castro-Palma era

''The World Tonight'' began to simulcast on the network's cable news channel Sarimanok News Network (now ANC) launched on May 1, 1996, even it was still airing on ABS-CBN. On February 9, 1998,

Tina Monzon-Palma María Cristina "Tina" Mapa Monzón-Palma (; born March 29, 1951) is a Filipina broadcast journalist and anchorwoman. She is best known as a late night news presenter in various Philippine television news programs in different television ne ...

replaced Loren Legarda and joined Angelo Castro Jr. to the newscast when Legarda ran and later won as the top senator in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

. Palma used to anchor rival newscasts ''GMA Headline News'' (on

GMA Network GMA Network (an acronym of its legal name, Global Media Arts and commonly known as GMA) is a Television in the Philippines, Philippine commercial broadcast network, serving as the flagship property of publicly traded GMA Network (company), ...

) from 1986 until 1992 and '' The Big News'' (on the reopened ABC, now TV5) from 1992 to 1997. Loren Legarda made her final broadcast on the February 6, 1998 newscast. However, beginning in late 1998, the ratings of English late-night newscasts including ''The World Tonight'' started to decline when rival GMA introduced

Filipino language Filipino ( ; , ) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with Philippine English, English. It is only a ''de facto'' and not a ''de jure'' standard langu ...

late-night news with the relaunch of '' GMA Network News'', anchored by Mike Enriquez and

Vicky Morales Victoria "Vicky" Torres Morales-Reyno (; born July 10, 1969) is a Filipino broadcast journalist and television presenter. She is a co-anchor of GMA Network's early evening newscast ''24 Oras'' since 2014, and the host of the Saturday afternoon ...

; it debuted as an English newscast in 1992 and switched to Filipino with the relaunch, surging ahead of the ratings game in the process. ''The World Tonight'' made its final broadcast on ABS-CBN on August 13, 1999. It was then replaced by the network's first Filipino-language late-night newscast, ''Pulso: Aksyon Balita'' anchored by

and Ted Failon. The show competed with '' Frontpage: Ulat ni Mel Tiangco'', which replaced ''GMA Network News'' on the same day.

ABS-CBN News Channel years (1999–present)

Two months later, ''The World Tonight'' premiered solely on the network's 24-hour

ABS-CBN News Channel The ABS-CBN News Channel, commonly known as ANC, is a 24/7 Philippine pay television news channel. It was launched in 1996 as the first all-news network in English language. The majority of its programs are produced by ABS-CBN News and Curre ...

(ANC) on October 11, 1999, due to the channel's relaunch. Angelo Castro Jr. and

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

, The World Tonight relaunched to its graphics along with other ANC and ABS-CBN newscasts. Castro retired as a news anchor in 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.

Revitalization (2015–present)

On January 12, 2015, 3 days before the Philippine visit of

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

, ''The World Tonight'' reformatted as part of the "internationalization" of the ABS-CBN News Channel. It moved to an earlier timeslot at 9:00 PM and expanded into a 1-hour newscast. New segments & reports with original content were also aired during the launching day. 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. On March 30, 2017, Palma took a sabbatical leave and Tony Velasquez temporarily took over as the program's main anchor. On January 29, 2018, Palma returned to the newscast after the leave, making her and Velasquez as the main anchors of the program. However, the production of the newscast's Sunday edition was halted on March 22, 2020, due to the enhanced community quarantine done to help control the spread of the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic in the Philippines and was replaced by provisional programming from the

on the same date, as well as the extended edition of ''Documentary Hour'' from April 26, 2020, when the timesharing of programming between both DZMM TeleRadyo (now TeleRadyo Serbisyo) and ANC ended. It airs from Monday to Saturday at 9:00 PM. On May 18, 2020, Palma and Velasquez returned to anchor the newscast after 2 months of hiatus in lieu of ANC and

DZMM DZMM (630 AM) Radyo Patrol is a radio station owned by Philippine Collective Media Corporation and operated conjointly with ABS-CBN Corporation under Media Serbisyo Production Corporation. The station's studios is located at the ABS-CBN Broad ...

's special coverage on the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Like ''

'' and the other programs airing on ANC and

TeleRadyo DZMM TeleRadyo (formerly TeleRadyo Serbisyo and also known as simply TeleRadyo) is a Philippine Pay television, pay television channel owned by Media Serbisyo Production Corporation, a joint venture between Prime Media Holdings (through its s ...

, the newscast began to livestream online in their

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channels. ''The World Tonight Weekend'' aired its final episode on November 30, 2024, along with other channel-produced Saturday newscasts. This follows ABS-CBN’s announcement that it will lay off another batch of employees, including some reporters and cameramen, due to financial difficulties caused by declining ad revenues.

Kapamilya Channel (2020–present)

On July 27, 2020, ''The World Tonight'' started its broadcast on ABS-CBN's replacement channel, the 24-hour

, taking the timeslot previously occupied by ''

'', ''

'' and the replays of ''

''. This marks the newscast's indirect return on its original network as part of the Primetime Bida programming block after 21 years. It's also one of the few English-language programs on this channel. In December 2020, main anchor Tina Monzon-Palma left the newscast citing to a new public affairs program starting in June 2021. Co-anchor Tony Velasquez replaced her as a main anchor. On January 4, 2021, ANC head Nadia Trinidad announced on Twitter that it would relaunch ''The World Tonight'' with Tony Velasquez and Karen Davila, who replaced Palma after 22 years, while retaining the OBB, title card, theme music and other graphics including the lower third (a maroon-used color introduced in November 2020) and the news ticker graphics currently used by the channel. However, the newscast is airing live from

's Studio 7 (which is also used to air ABS-CBN's flagship news program ''

'' and was their original studio during their

days). As Palma "has retired from the daily grind", Trinidad said that she would have her own public affairs program launching "soon", which later debuted as ''Tina Monzon-Palma Reports'' in May 2021. On October 8, 2021, ABS-CBN News announced that Davila would return to ''TV Patrol'' on October 11, replacing

Noli de Castro Manuel "Noli" Eleuterio de Castro Jr. (; born July 6, 1949) is a Filipino broadcaster, journalist politician and singer. who served as the 12th Vice President of the Philippines from 2004 until 2010, under the second full term of President ...

. She was replaced by senior news reporter Pia Gutierrez. From March 25 to April 7, 2022, ''The World Tonight'' temporarily suspended its delayed airing on Kapamilya Channel due to the special program of ABS-CBN News Harapan 2022, while it continued to broadcast on ANC. On March 14, 2025, ''The World Tonight'' temporarily pre-empted its delayed airing on both ANC and Kapamilya Channel due to the delayed coverage of the Pre-trial of former President

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

at the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...

Anchors

Weeknight anchors

* Tony Velasquez (2015–present) * Pia Gutierrez (2021–present)

Substitute anchors

* Rica Lazo * Bettina Magsaysay * Ron Cruz * Vivienne Gulla *

Migs Bustos Miguel Carlos "Migs" Lim Bustos (born December 4, 1988) is a Filipino sports television news anchor, forecaster, commentator and reporter and model working for the Philippine media conglomerate ABS-CBN Corporation. Early life and education Migu ...

* Denice Dinsay

Segment presenters

* Michelle Ong ("In Business")

Former

* Hal Bowie (1966–67) * Henry Halasan (1966–72) * Angelo Castro Jr. (1986–1999; 1999–2009; 2011) *

(1986–98) * Gel Santos-Relos (weatherwoman, 1986–92) * Larry Ng (1986, relief anchor 1987–90) *

(business anchor and occasional relief anchor for Legarda/Palma, 1992–99) *

(alternate business anchor, 1992–99; main business anchor, 2015–17) * Daphne Oseña-Paez (weatherwoman, 1996–99) * TJ Manotoc (2015–17, "In the Zone") * Coco Alcuaz (2015, "In Business") * Amy Godinez-Cuenco (1989–91) *

(weekday anchor, 1986; Saturday/Sunday Edition anchor, 1987–95) * Bon Vibar (alternate Saturday/Sunday Edition anchor for Castro, 1987–96, relief anchor for Castro Jr. 1986–96) * Angelique Lazo (Saturday/Sunday entertainment anchor, 1987–95) * Frankie Evangelista (relief anchor for Castro Jr., 1994–99) *

(1998–99; 1999–2017; 2018–21) * Caroline Howard (weatherwoman, 1999–2017) * Teodoro Locsin Jr. (2011–17) (segment anchor for "Teditorial") * Marie Lozano (2015–16; segment anchor for "Scene") * Warren de Guzman (2015–16; segment anchor for "Business") * Dyan Castillejo (1992–99; 2015–16, segment anchor for "In the Zone") * Gigi Grande (alternate weatherwoman, 1996–99; 2015–19, Saturday anchor) * Ron Cruz (2013–20; Sunday anchor) * Karen Davila (2021) * Stanley Palisada (2013–24)

Segments

*TWT Report *In Business *Metro Wrap *World Focus *7,107 *In The Zone/Gametime *Scene *Final Word Tonight

References

External links