The move was highly controversial in October 2000 and is still not without its critics.

But the BBC maintains that the move was right and says the shift freed up prime time slots for more popular programming.

The change was announced by Greg Dyke just seven months into his job as director general of the BBC and was seen as an aggressive, audience-poaching move by the former commercial TV boss.

Audiences

The BBC says that the Ten O'Clock News has averaged an audience of 5m viewers since the move - the same as its audience for the Nine O'Clock News.

Since the events of 11 September, audiences for the Ten O'Clock News have been up by almost a million to just under 6m viewers.

In a statement, BBC director of news Richard Sambrook said: "These audience figures show UK viewers clearly value the comprehensive and authoritative round-up of foreign, domestic and political news the Ten O'Clock News provides."

But an ITN spokesman told BBC News Online that the move "narrows consumer choice".

The BBC's move to 10pm was the culmination of a complex series of manoeuvrings that began with ITV's decision to drop its own News at Ten slot.

The ITV network had seen a large audience drop for the news during 1998 - and felt that the scheduling inhibited it from showing films and drama during prime time slots.

The move was opposed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and also by the all-party Culture committee, headed by Gerald Kaufman MP.

ITV went ahead, with a replacement news programme at 11pm and a bulletin of headlines at 10pm.

Opportunity

A year on from the move the Independent Television Commission called for the News at Ten to be restored and eventually got its way.

The first head-to-head clash came on Monday, 22 January 2000.

Since then, the BBC has tried to expand the 9pm audience with drama, documentary and comedy shows.

Lorraine Heggessey, Controller of BBC One said: "The move of the news to 10pm has been good news for viewers.

She said: "It has allowed us to open up our schedule to show more quality programmes at 9pm, including new drama such as Crime Doubles and Clocking Off and strong documentaries like Blue Planet.

"Viewing figures for our coverage of current world events proves that BBC News is still first choice for viewers."