5.30pm Sunday 9th November 1997

Before the channel officially began, a half hour preface was shown. This began with a brief history of BBC News taken from The First 30 Years, shown 5th July 1984. The programme continued with:

• a look at what the channel will bring
• why the presenters wanted to join News 24
• how accessible regional content will be from the BBC newsrooms
• how the channel will focus on special events
• the news centre and a look at the futuristic technology
• analysis with Dateline London
• cybernet with BBC News Online
• Europe with Europe Direct

Following a brief look at the opening titles of many of the programmes appearing on BBC News 24 (to the TOTH music), we launched into the first ever bulletin at 6pm.

Initial caption	A countdown for the last 30 seconds...
First play of the new ident
A look at the history of BBC News
	"Why did you want to work for News 24?"
BBC News 24 and Online, integrated	ENPS - The newsgathering service

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