ABS-CBN News Channel years (1999–present) Two months later, The World Tonight premiered solely on the network's 24-hour ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) on October 11, 1999, due to the channel's relaunch. Angelo Castro Jr. and Tina Monzon-Palma still remained as anchors at that time. The program continues to be one of the channel's flagship newscasts. On March 12, 2001, as part of the major programming changes of ABS-CBN, The World Tonight relaunched to its graphics along with other ANC and ABS-CBN newscasts. Castro retired as a news anchor in September 2009, as Palma went solo. However, he later returned on November 7, 2011, on a sporadic basis until December 26 of that year. He died on April 5, 2012, of lung cancer at the age of 67. Revitalization (2015–present) On January 12, 2015, 3 days before the Philippine visit of Pope Francis, The World Tonight reformatted as part of the "internationalization" of the ABS-CBN News Channel. It moved to an earlier timeslot at 9:00pm and expanded into a 1-hour newscast to compete with State of the Nation of then GMA News TV (now GTV) and CNN Philippines Nightly News of CNN Philippines, among other newscasts on the timeslot. New segments & reports with original content were also aired during the launching day. On November 21, 2016, The World Tonight celebrated its 50th anniversary. Also this year, ANC marked its 20th anniversary. As part of the celebration of the two important milestones for the channel, an ANC X event was held at 8 Rockwell on December 7, 2016, which was attended by ABS-CBN executives, past and present anchors of The World Tonight and ANC, and prominent members of the business community. A documentary on the history of "The World Tonight" was aired on ANC on December 30, 2016. On March 30, 2017, Palma took a sabbatical leave and Tony Velasquez temporarily took over as the program's main anchor. On January 29, 2018, Palma returned to the newscast after the leave, making her and Velasquez as the main anchors of the program. However, the production of the newscast's Sunday edition was halted on March 22, 2020, due to the enhanced community quarantine done to help control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines and was replaced by provisional programming from the ABS-CBN News Channel on the same date, as well as the extended edition of Documentary Hour from April 26, 2020,