The National, now officially known as CBC News: The National, is the CBC's flagship national television newscast. It reports on major Canadian and international news stories, airing on CBC Television weeknights at 10:00 p.m. local time (10:30 p.m. NT).
The program generally follows a format of news headlines for the first 20 minutes followed by a magazine segment that may include documentaries, feature reports and/or panel discussions. The first commercial interruption usually comes about 20 minutes into the program. In exceptional news circumstances, the regular format may be waived.
CBC owned-and-operated stations used to repeat the news headline portion of The National at 11:00 p.m.; this practice ended in October 2006, when repeats of CBC News: The Hour began blank">airing in that timeslot. Private affiliates of the CBC did not broadcast the 11 p.m. airing. Additional airings, on _CBC Newsworld, are at 9:00 p.m. (the initial version that airs live to Atlantic Canada on the main network), 12:00 midnight, and 5:00 a.m., all times ET. Until August 2005, The National was also seen in the United States on the defunct Newsworld International channel.
The National and other CBC newscasts (including its "supper hour" national and local newscast) are streamed on the CBC website.
In the fall of 2007, The National became the first main newscast in Canada to be broadcast in HDTV.
