Emma Barnett and Nick Ferrari to launch After the News – ITV's new late-night current affairs show

Radio 5 Live's Emma Barnett and LBC presenter Nick Ferrari will present the show – previously called Late Night Live – in the first week. It is not yet clear whether the format will then rotate its presenters each week as originally planned.

Airing every weeknight for five weeks from October 9th, the show will focus on the news and aims to woo audiences from BBC2's current affairs show Newsnight.

“Think BBC’s This Week, but with an ITV twist,” it has been described by a source.

"Emma and Nick will be joined by high-profile guests with passionately-held and differing views to discuss some of Britain’s main talking points," says the ITV billing. "They’ll also interview the people at the heart of the biggest stories of the moment."

The commission is part of an attempt by ITV controller of programmes Kevin Lygo to improve the channel’s late-night performance, which led to the disastrous experiment with The Nightly Show earlier this year.

Airing over eight weeks in the 10pm news slot – which shunted the daily bulletin to later in the evening – the topical entertainment format was hosted by a range of performers including John Bishop, David Walliams and Gordon Ramsay but performed disastrously in the ratings.

Lygo has said that he might still bring the show back but in a later time slot.

The move of the 10pm bulletin met with stiff opposition from ITV’s news provider ITN who believed that the decision demeaned the brand and gave the BBC’s 10pm bulletin a free run while failing to improve the ratings performance in the slot.

However ITN bosses will be pleased that the current plans mean that the 10pm news will remain where it is – at least for the moment.