Spotlight (BBC Northern Ireland TV programme)

For BBC South West's regional news programme, see BBC Spotlight (South West).

Spotlight is a BBC Northern Ireland weekly current affairs programme. It debuted in 1973.

Spotlight
Genre	Current Affairs
Country of origin	Northern Ireland
Original language	English
Production
Running time	30–40 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC One Northern Ireland

The programme is aired on BBC1 Northern Ireland at 10:35pm (and sometimes early) on Tuesday evenings,^[1] with a repeat on BBC2.^[2] It is available to UK viewers outside of Northern Ireland on BBC iPlayer for a week after the programme. The format usually consists of a half-hour report presented on a rotating basis by a small number of presenters and reporters. At present, these are Mandy McAuley,^[3] Lyndsey Telford,^[4] Conor Spackman, ^[5] Julian O'Neill,^[6] Stephen Dempster,^[7] Jennifer O'Leary,^[8] Alan Haslam.^[9] Occasionally, the programme consists of a studio format with various reports and panel discussions.

Spotlight is well known for its hard-hitting investigations^[10] and in 2008 won a Royal Television Society award for Mandy McAuley's dog-fighting investigation. ^[11][12]

It has launched the careers of a number of high-profile broadcasters, including Jeremy Paxman, Alex Thomson and Gavin Esler. ^[13]

Spotlight at 40

On 22 October 2013, Spotlight celebrated its 40th anniversary with an hour-long special show dubbed Spotlight at 40.^[14][15] The show featured interviews with Gavin Esler, Roisin McAuley, Alex Thomson and Jeremy Paxman and took a look back at the show's 40-year run including its most controversial shows. ^[16]