WWUpdate

From Phoenix, a treasure trove of KTVK promos from the '80s, '90s, and '00s, including many never seen before online:

Fantastic! Speaking of Phoenix stations covering California earthquakes, tonight might me a good time to repost this -- KTVK's coverage of the 1989 Bay Area Earthquake with the director's track:

A new compilation of WMAQ news intros from the 1940s (!) to the present:

KTTV, Los Angeles; 10 p.m.; 1990:

The video below is from Australia, but it's a remake of a classic American promo. Unfortunately, I can't remember which stations used it -- I think it was featured in Newsactive3's promo compilations, among other places. Can anyone help me out?

WLS, Chicago; news promo, 1984:

Ron Magers anchoring on KSTP, 1975:

And a similar compilation covering WBBM between 1990 and 2000 -- a period that saw the station undergoing constant changes, going from traditional, to WSVN-lite, to more traditional again (but with several different looks and approaches), and then ending the decade with Carol Marin's sophisticated 10 p.m. experiment:

From Chicago, various WMAQ goodies (mostly promos, newsbreaks, and teases) from the late '80s to the late '90s:

WLS, Chicago; 6 p.m. news promo, 1993:

In memory of Tom Ellis, here is the first-ever newscast on WNEV (preceded by two promos):

Another 6 p.m. WLS newscast in its entirety, this time from 1998. We've seen the open before in this thread, but not the rest of the newscast (at least I don't think we have):

WFLD, Chicago, 9 p.m., 2001 -- with the special "Tonight's only news at nine" tag used when WGN was showing a game:

By the way, do we know anything about the editorial theme heard at 58:01? Was it used by all ABC O&Os at the time?

Here's another clip of Gari's unidentified theme used by POP TV in Slovenia (used in conjunction with Eyewitness News in the close):

Staying in Chicago, a complete 6 p.m. newscast from WLS, 1980:

In 2007, WMAQ would once again experiment with an unconventional morning format: Barely Today at 4:30 a.m., anchored by former WFLD sportscaster Bruce Wolf. This is what the first broadcast looked like: After a few months, the show was scrapped and the 5 a.m. news was expanded to start 30 minutes earlier. Interestingly, Barely Today used Newswire for its close, about a decade after WMAQ stopped using the legendary theme.

By the way, Bob Sirott's and his antics were not appreciated by WMAQ's management and he ended up being let go by the station in 1993. He moved to WFLD where he reinvented First Thing in the Morning as the equally off-beat Fox Thing in the Morning, but now with a co-anchor, Marianne Murciano, who played along with his jokes. (The would eventually get married.) Here's a clip -- including the open -- from 1999:

While WLS preferred a straightforward, just-the-facts approach to its morning news in the early 1990s, WMAQ responded with a more wacky, informal newscast titled First Thing in the Morning, featuring the antics of Bob Sirott, a former WLS-AM disc jockey:

WBBM, Chicago; news promo, 1985:

An annotated look at 30 years of WLS morning news promos:

The clip above reminds me of this classic SNL skit featuring Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tom-brokaw-pre-tapes/n10894

To mark today's mayoral election in Chicago, let's turn back the clock 36 years to the 1983 vote, as seen on the 6 p.m. WLS news:

A couple of newly uploaded WLS promos from 1998:

A topical promo for KTVK's Eyewitness News era (i.e., 1986 or earlier):