Ntropolis

WSLS news brief from 1987 using Hello News

Finally found some more WNCT from the last "NewsCenter 9" era... the station had recently been purchased by Media General at this point. No newscast, but here's a promo with Allan Hoffman:

Former WVEC and WTKR anchor Jane Gardner has passed away after numerous battles with cancer.

Related to WBTV... they appeared to have an “On Your Side” campaign during the PNP era; an instrumental is heard during this sign-off/sign-on message: Shelly Palmer has done station image songs in the past, but this doesn’t sound like Palmer to me.

I have a "good feeling" the 'WRAL 1982 News Theme' & image is by JAM Productions. The female vocalist in the above promo sounds like the same one as in this promo for WVRN in Richmond, "It's a Good Feeling to Know" which was made for WJZ by JAM Productions and is paired to their The News Leader music package. Is anyone able to back this up with more evidence? The WRAL theme and song is giving me strong JAM vibes.

I posted this a while back but glad you enjoyed it! I was excited to come across it because there wasn't a whole lot of the "It's Time for TV-3" look online. The same tape also has most of the 5pm news on it (the beginning was taped over with WTKR from 1999... appears they used the tape to record soaps and they let it run). This gives you a look at the franchise opens, etc.

No surprise there... KIEM looked roughly the same in 1996 as it did in 2009.

Coincidentally, Ed Carter passed away this morning at the age of 81 due to complications from COVID-19. https://www.wistv.com/2020/04/28/former-wis-anchor-ed-carter-dies/

WKFT (Fayetteville, NC) commercials from 1992 including this WKFT Newsbrief anchored by Joyce Ohajah, who would end up as a presenter for ITV in the UK. WKFT ended its news department in 1989, but began hourly news updates like this one in 1991 using the same news theme from the former newscast.

WTKR 50th anniversary retrospective (2000)

After a 10 1/2-year absence, weekend morning newscasts return to WTKR on Saturday, April 4th.

WNCT’s 6pm newscast from July 1, 1991!

Sounds fine to me. Not as weird as every station that picked up Wall to Wall News in the 2000s

WVEC report on the Virginia General Assembly's failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment on February 13, 1980. Includes the last few seconds of the open using the ABC World News Tonight synthesizer theme. Virginia finally ratified the ERA today - 40 years later.

TVARK is back online: https://www.tvark.org/?page=644 It appears this user is Bandicam-ing their stuff and re-uploading to Youtube. Not cool, bro. What do you use to capture 60fps? I would love to transition to this for my uploads at some point.

WECT is about to go Gray. They are using the Gray ticker this morning.

This demo reel from Jeff Hertrick offers a rare look at ill-fated Martinsburg, WV Fox affiliate WYVN's newscast. Also includes some clips of his time at WTOC. WYVN used the "USA News"-copycat production track "America's Station" from Firstcom.

I believe WFMY used that cut too. It's sooo ridiculously 90s... especially the first letter mismatched font type on the supers. I love it.

One of the things I noticed about this is how smaller-market WBTW looked at the time. Robeson and Scotland counties (NC) hadn't been added to the DMA yet. They looked more Pee Dee-focused... Myrtle Beach was on the cusp of the explosion in growth it experienced in the 1990s, so it's no surprise there are only a couple Grand Strand shots in the open. I would've expected a golf course flyover in there, but Myrtle just wasn't quite there yet.

This is an improvement. I never cared for the old logo... it was a bastardization of the 2003 logo.

My big find this weekend! FINALLY, a WBTW news open from the 80s.

KJRH in June 1989 with "The Image Leader"

I hear NewsAge...

Thanks to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, all episodes of UNC-TV's North Carolina Now from its 1994 premiere through July 31, 1998 are available online for viewing. In searching the archive, I came across the composer for the original "cheesy 1990s talk show" theme in the credits roll: a company called Scores (not related to Score Productions). You can see an episode with an nice, long 1-minute closing with the theme here I can't find any information about Scores... it sounds like this company has been out of business for quite some time. I assume it was North Carolina-based.

FINALLY! That's long overdue.