News at Ten is ITN's flagship news programme on British television network ITV. It was originally planned as a thirteen week project in July 3, 1967, but lasted until March 5, 1999. It was then resurrected from January 22, 2001 until January 30, 2004. Finally it was resurrected for the second time on January 14, 2008, heralding the return of Trevor McDonald who came out of retirement after two years.
Its set-in-stone airtime meant that movies which started at 9pm had to take a half-hour break at 10, much to the annoyance of schedulers.
When this national institution finally ended, there was an outcry. This included pressure from Members of Parliament and newspaper campaigns, but they had no effect on the schedules.
Its brief headlines in between the hour-chimes of Big Ben were known to the editorial team as "the bongs".
The theme music is taken from Johnny Pearson's "The Awakening", itself part of a longer composition called "20th Century Portrait".
