Lateline is Australia's flagship television news and current affairs program, airing weeknights at on ABC1, similar in format to the BBC's Newsnight program. The program has developed a reputation for head-to-head debates on current issues and political interviews, often featuring leading experts in a setting that is user-friendly to the audience, whilst maintaing the ABC's strong reputation for fearless journalism. Lateline is followed by its sister programme Lateline Business, which commenced on 14 August 2006. It has been labelled by the influential Crikey magazine as being, "an unmissable current affairs program that almost certainly creates more headlines in the next day's newspapers than any other TV show in the country.

When Lateline premiered on 13 February 1990, it was a thirty-minute single-topic debate forum hosted by Kerry O'Brien, with Ian Carroll as executive producer, and produced in Canberra. Airing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in 1990 and 1991, and expanding to Monday to Thursday nights from 1992 onwards, the program opened with a seven-minute video piece that attempted to examine the case in a balanced manner, followed by twenty minutes of moderated debate between two to four guests. It was later hosted by Maxine McKew who retired in 2006, before moving into politics.

The most notable aspect of the format at the time was that many guests appeared via satellite. Whether in the studio or on the other side of the world all the guests would appear 'remote', on monitors.

In 2000, an ABC managerial shakeup resulted in the implementation of cost-cutting measures, and the program was transferred to Sydney. Lateline was merged with the ABC Late News program, a ten-minute rundown of the day's top stories and important events that occurred during the evening which ran for ten minutes before Lateline. The new Lateline format, now totalling 35 minutes, includes news, plus approximately twenty minutes of interview. The pre-interview video segment has also been eliminated.

The show usually is hosted by Tony Jones, with Virginia Trioli assuming the role on Friday nights. Trioli, previously known for her work for ABC Local Radio in Melbourne and Sydney, and on Sunday Arts succeeded Maxine McKew, after she resigned in October 2006 to stand as a candidate for the Australian Labor Party in the recent 2007 Federal election.

Reporters include: political reporter, Hayden Cooper, Dana Robertson,Margot O'Neill, Suzanne Smith, John Stewart, Tom Iggulden and Brett Evans. It is produced by: Lindsay Olney, Aaron Thomas, Andrew Dickson and David Lawrence. Executive Producer is Tim Palmer, who is also Executive Producer of Lateline Business.

Recipients of Walkley Awards from Lateline include Maxine McKew in 1998, and Tony Jones, who received an award for broadcast interviewing in 2004 and 2007. Reporter Suzanne Smith won in 2005 a Logie award for ‘Most Outstanding News Coverage’ for her story about sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

LateLine was an American TV sitcom that ran on NBC from March 17, 1998, through March 16, 1999. Due to an abrupt cancellation, there were seven unaired episodes (three of which were telecast by the Showtime cable/satellite television channel in December 1999).

Created by John Markus and Al Franken (the latter of whom co-starred in the series), LateLine depicted the behind-the-scenes goings-on of a fictitious late-night television news broadcast, patterned in part after the long-running ABC program Nightline. Many plotlines in the series were satirical, dealing with topics like Deep Throat and the Watergate break-in, and the episodes often had cameos by famous politicians.

On August 17, 2004, Paramount released a DVD set containing all nineteen episodes on three discs.

This sitcom on NBC stars Al Franken as Al Freundlich, a vain reporter for the fictional news program "Lateline." Robert Foxworth stars as Pearce McKenzie, the anchor of "Lateline." Vic Karp is the show's executive producer. This spoof of "Nightline" showcases numerous real life politicians, and real Washington bigwigs. Written by Eric