TServo2049

Also, on the subject of WRAL, I don't think it's JAM. I'm also not sure it's the same singer on both those videos - they sound similar, but quite a few female vocalists from the South do. And that KSN thing doesn't sound like the usual Dallas vocal group we'd hear on JAM stuff, either. My current thoughts about WRAL 1982's possible place of origin go to a city that produced a lot of broadcast advertising music, but which nobody ever really talks about: Nashville. The reason I am thinking this is not even because of the music (though the vocalist on that WRAL promo vaguely reminds me of Janie Fricke, of all people), but because of the animation. Allow me to introduce you to a Nashville-based production company called Cascom. For those who have never heard of them, but know about the stock animations you see in a ton of old news opens and promos and stuff, especially for smaller stations - think of the laser outline cameraman with the mustache, the four spotlights, the rotating globe in the shiny ring, the city in the distance with the searchlights, all the stuff in that WLIG open - that was them.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpjjYyCIg64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpjjYyCIg64 (I keep getting an error that YT doesn't allow embedding of this video, so just click on the link.) (And apparently, they were also involved in the distribution of those even more ubiquitous Cranston-Csuri CGI graphic templates that showed up everywhere in the mid/late 80s; they never owned nor were under common ownership with Cranston-Csuri, so it must have been some kind of licensing agreement, or maybe they contracted Cranston-Csuri to do them for lack of their own CGI production. I'm really not sure.) Cascom produced those generic animations (well, excepting the Cranston-Csuri stuff, of course) and syndicated them as a generic package, but they also did custom stuff (some of which was repurposed into the generic effects package - for example, the really long demo has a package of elements you can see in promos online for a couple Australian stations like SAS-10 Adelaide, and you can also spot starburst effects from United Artists Theaters trailers and camera shutter effects from General Cinema policy trailers, which they animated under contract for an Atlanta-based outfit called Cinema Concepts, which later merged with Cascom around 1987 or so, but evidently split back off from them later). The WRAL animations really look like the Cascom stuff I've seen - even knowing that so much of these backlit animation graphics looked similar and used similar tricks, no matter who made them - so if the animation was done in Nashville, might the music have also been done there? The fact that WRAL 1982 also showed up on KTXL, a station who definitely used Cascom's generic graphics, and had custom animations that looked very similar, also makes me wonder. So does the presence of a vaguely familiar voice in the "Take Off With Forty" song (and also possibly in "Go for the Stars"), who reminds me of the female vocalists in old Pepper-Tanner/William B. Tanner jingles. Those were done in Memphis, and I believe that some Memphis session singers (like Janie Fricke) eventually moved to Nashville, they're close enough that there could have been back and forth. I'm not that sure of the extent of Cascom's involvement in broadcast music, but it is food for thought.

This is all accurate to what I'd learned from my correspondence. Hayes Productions (but not Mr. Byrne) also would appear to be behind "It's a New 4" for KTVY, based on 1.) it appearing in what appears to be an animation demo reel of theirs which NewsActive3 posted some years back, alongside KMOL '79, WAGA '79, and the 1976-77 Outlet group package; and 2.) the lead vocalist on the separately uploaded full promo, Johnny Hooper, confirmed to me in a separate conversation that it's his voice on the song, and that he would travel from Dallas to San Antonio a couple times a year to sing jingles there. (Side note: While I don't believe Hayes was behind "17 and You" for WJKS, I also feel like I hear Hooper's voice in the group of that ID jingle, and my research suggests that might have also been done in San Antonio and not in Dallas. There's a copyright registration for "Seventeen and you" by one Robert H. Bruce; there was/is also a Robert H. Bruce in San Antonio, who ran United Audio Recording.)

I may have asked Hal Brown some years back about WRAL 1982; if so, he didn’t recognize it, because I’d have told people if I had gotten a composed ID. (VTS did, of course, do WRAL’s next package “The Place to Be.”) I’d previously theorized that WRAL/KTXL was by the same composer as the KTLA 1982 theme (a company called AdMusic; I got the information by asking some KTLA veterans and have corresponded with one or both of the principals). But IIRC, the former AdMusic writer/co-owner I spoke to did not recognize it - though he said they did one other station package for a station in Charlotte, I forget if they remembered which one. (Strangely, nobody I have spoken to remembers the KTLA package being used by KSTW, or being syndicated to a bunch of other stations in conjunction with a graphics package. That seems odd, but memory *is* fallible.)

Oh, wow! I thought I’d never see that AMC intro again! Someone else posted that open on YT maybe 11-12 years ago (no idea who; that video disappeared at least a decade ago), and I noticed the WROC resemblance even then. (I also have vague memories of the station ID music being similar to WROC’s, but I could be misremembering.) I hear a hint of Tuesday in there (the brass and percussion), but my memory suggests that I sent Tom DiNoto audio of the similar WROC theme some years back when I was corresponding with him via email, and he didn’t recognize it.

An ID with that music has been circulating for years, on a compilation of assorted IDs and commercials that has been floating around since the early 2000s. (Genius7277 uploaded it in chunks on YouTube years back, it's still up and the KXAS ID is in there.) I've been waiting to hear this theme beyond the 5-second ID for 15 years.

I guess TVbD was left unnamed due to not being local. Unfortunately, there's not much footage of KMPH's non-news image elements online, but I happen to have an ID followed by a stereo L3 graphic at the beginning of a program, which I got on VHS almost 20 years ago. I believe the same person sent the Fresno clips to TV Ark back in the 00s. The ID music is great, and the announcer even says "Now in stereo!"

I dunno, this doesn't sound like Peters to me. This sounds more Dallas, the vocals on the WYFF version sound kind of Dallas to me. I think WYFF is on Peters' client list for the original Your Friend 4 (possibly connected to KTVO's "Your Friend 3" which was also definitely Peters). Dunno about KTVL...

There is an ASCAP registration for "Real News Theme" by John Bauers, which also shows an alternate title "KCOP Theme." There's also a copyright registration for "Real News Theme", with John Bauers listed as author, and dated 1993. I'd guess that it's the same theme you're asking about.

On that note, is the long 2 Together promo still up anywhere? I saw it about a decade ago, but did it ever get reuploaded after it disappeared from YT? I think I can hear the same 4-note motif that's in the KUTV 1981 package open, at the very end of this promo, seeming to provide still further evidence that said package was by Peters and tied into the image campaign. But I would certainly love to watch that longer promo again, to see if it has a more audible example of a "2 Together" musical logo.

I would assume it's Scott Schreer / NJJ Music as well, but I don't know if he has contact info. I know the NetworkNewsMusic guy got the ID on the WNBC theme (which NMSA still misattributes to someone else, along with lumping NJJ in as the same company as HLC and Killer Tracks). I do, however, know that Paul Libman (a Chicago native) did the next WMAQ package, the 1985 one (and the reorchestrated version of it too). He confirmed that with me. It was in connection with a campaign "Feeling the Beat of Chicago" which is registered in the U.S. Copyright Office under his name/company. (Listen to the end signature; ignore the NBC chimes in the middle, and it matches that slogan exactly.)

Also, WCPX "6 Believes in You" is another one that Ed Peters told me about some years back. It was in use concurrent with "Determination"; it wasn't used as a news intro, but it was used as a news closing. There has been a 1985 close on YouTube for a while (right now there's a full 1985 newscast), with an instrumental-with-vocal-tag "6 Believes in You" as part of one of those "local people on camera" closings (I wonder, was this a concept originated by Peters? Or was it a Magid thing? It obviously outlasted Peters at WXIA, all the way until their complete station image refresh around the fall of 1993.)

Nope, I figured it out. KTNV is in that list, but under its previous call letters of KSHO. This could mean that 13 Belongs predates the 1980 call sign change. I have a 1980 Calico demo reel (I assume it's 1980 because it has the Hour Magazine intro in it) on VHS that I got from someone who got it from tvnewsman who got it from eyeontv - who also uploaded it on one of his earlier YT accounts, but never reuploaded it - which has animations for KHON "2 Belongs," KTNV (or KSHO?) "13 Belongs," and KTWO "K2 The Free Spirit". (Sorry, no accompanying music, it was a montage of clips set to a Vivaldi piece.) I guess Peters went to Calico for at least some of their animations, like Klein & did.

I agree with you. I was thinking more of the ID jingle, which doesn't necessarily come from the same package, even if one might assume so. (Though the WEAR 1982 open is weird, it also sounds too electronic but it seems to be repeating "Three-Clear-ly-Yours" over and over.)

The promo song on the website actually sounds like it leads into the jingle at the beginning of the open for this package. http://www.southernmedia-nmsa.com/#3,1,1618 Do we have video of that open? Do we know what year the clip is actually from? (The theme may go back to 1980, there's a sales promo labeled as that year with the actual news theme in it.)

Doubtful. I'm pretty sure that jingle was recorded in Los Angeles, not San Diego. I recognize the singers, they were union and Tuesday/Peters were not (see: the Tuesday/AFTRA lawsuit).

I've had this theory for a while. I didn't get 100% confirmation from Ed Peters on the phone (or maybe I did), but since I already knew Peters Productions filed a trademark for "Together" for use in broadcast promotion (along with "Alive," "Belongs", "Believes," "Is Yours," etc.) and I assumed from the melody and logo that it was "11 Together." I will have more thoughts on all this later. I have detected a couple more possibilities in that music demo. (Actually, WQAD early 80s was one of them, but looks like you beat me to that by finding the logo on their Facebook. The promo excerpt in the demo reel sounds almost like it could lead into the ID jingle heard at the beginning of the early 80s news intro on NMSA.) I wonder if KTNV not being on that list is just an omission. I assumed KTNV 1981 was "13 Belongs", it resembles a piece of music heard on a KOVR movie open on YouTube that also features their 13 Belongs logo. KUTV is on that list, too. That's got to be "2 Together," but was the 1981 news open music related? It sounds like it says "2 To-ge-ther!" (And I just realized when I pointed this out before last summer, I said KTVX when I should have said KUTV...) (Someone uploaded a 2 Together promo with an image song to YouTube over a decade ago, but it's long gone. I forget who it was - localstationbreak's original Johninmontana account? Maybe NewsActive3 before one of his earlier video purges? If the latter, could it be lurking in one of his longer videos like some of the other stuff he had up in the mid/late 00s?) Also, WEAR has to be "3 Clearly Yours", I feel like I may have confirmed this one with Ed once. The long instrumental and ID jingle sound similar to the other Peters/possible Peters stuff (it's still hard to nail down as much of a "Peters sound" as we can with Tuesday).

That 7/4/86 KSDK update is interesting. When did the next theme debut? In the fall? I would assume that they would have rolled out the new graphics and music at the same time as the new NBC logo, but I don't actually know, because KSDK footage from that period is so scarce (despite someone out there having more video we haven't seen from the 80s, but they only ever post photos snapped off of a TV/monitor). The fact that NMSA still misdates this theme as 1981 when it most likely debuted some time in 1985 is a testament to how much of a black hole this period is.

Do you mean the open cut at 5:30 on this reel? It's very strange, if I listened to it on its own, I might think it was Gari. But comparing the vocal promos to The One 4 All which was the same year, the singers absolutely do not sound like Gari's singers. The vocals aren't the classic L.A. vocal sound, but it sounds in line with late 70s/early 80s Klein &. The lead male singer really really sounds like the same one who showed up on other stuff they did that was definitely recorded in L.A. (John Bahler? Or maybe Tom Bahler?) I'm not sure how much of this came to them completed, and how much of this features in-house production, but I know the animations were also done in L.A. by an outfit called Midocean Motion Pictures - that news open (but just an excerpt of the visual, in a montage of clips set to Jean-Michel Jarre) also shows up on a demo reel from the same time that I found on an online stock footage archive. However, WBZ did make at least one in-house promo that combined this graphic package with The One 4 All: A conundrum indeed...

That's merging two themes, I'm talking about themes which exist in NMSA as part of completely unrelated packages. (WROC 1981 + 1987 =/= We're 4, Telesound NBC =/= Tuesday9, WAGA 1979 =/= X Belongs, not to mention that wonky WVEC open with the Turn To signature that may have been a non-Gari local production...) Actually, I went back to the RNYN post comments, and Ron Dylewski now thinks RNYN may be correct about WROC 1987 being We're 4, but I'm still not so sure. The Renaissance 2 vocals are not L.A., and I swear Bob Klein specifically told me once that said promo was not his work. (Or I may be getting things mixed up with Tom DiNoto's response in the negative as to being Tuesday - though there are a couple late-70s "Here's 2" promos and instrumentals that sound much more like Tuesday than Klein & to my ear; the song pulled off KDKA's website long ago when they had old retro clips might be one of them, but I go back and forth on it because the digital file was so compressed that it's hard for me to tell. The other was a sports theme on a video that was nuked a few years ago.)

I wonder, when Ron Dylewski says Jeff Sutton did "KD & You," does that mean we also have a composer ID for the "tunnel"-era theme that has been misidentified as The News Image for almost 20 years? We now have at least four themes that need to be splintered off of unrelated packages from completely different producers in NMSA: KDKA 1983(?)/WROC 1987, KD & You, WAGA 1979, the early 80s Telesound NBC affiliate package (KSDK, WTVO, etc.). There's WROC 1981 too, but that has no composer ID yet. Is it connected to the KDKA stuff? All I know is that the WROC 1981 musical signature showed up (not the same recording) in very early AMC IDs which were on YouTube a decade ago, got taken down and never resurfaced. Oh, and a crazy thing about that We're 4 intro music that you think is Gari: Before I began corresponding with Bob Klein, it was actually labeled as Gari on NMSA! I forget if I got definite confirmation from Gari that it wasn't his work; I called him once in 2006 or so, but I have discovered that I no longer have the notes, assuming I took any back then - my Bob Klein and Edd Kalehoff notes are preserved but nothing relating to Gari. But I feel like if I had called him at that time, that would have been one of the things I would have asked about. The L.A. and N.Y. commercial music production scenes rarely overlapped (I think Gari did local affiliate stuff for the first Still the One campaign - remember how the animation showed up in a mid-2000s Gari demo reel? - and they sang a special Still the One '79/Catch 5 hybrid for WEWS, for which JAM sent a copy of the instrumental to Gari in NY, as related by Jon Wolfert), I would find it extremely hard to believe that Klein & would have outsourced to Gari. Doesn't sound like Gari to me anyway...

It's weird that the "Nowhere Else" image campaign is obscure, when it was the basis for a First News package update. Actually, wasn't there a copyright and/or performing-rights registration for "Nowhere Else News"? Was it ever actually syndicated as such before being rolled into First News? Any industry old-timers like promoguy98 possibly recall?

So my San Diego theory was correct. My guess had always been Tuesday, so I was only somewhat off...

From my correspondence with his widow, she maintains that she still has all his stuff on DAT. She moved up to Santa Rosa in the last couple years, I still want to go up and listen to that stuff but I think it still hasn't been unpacked...

Actually, that sounds like Tuesday9 to me. In fact, this may be the first clip of a non-WESH station actually using it, and not the Telesound NBC stations package that it seems to have copied off of.

"We Take You There" was a real KCRA news image campaign, and it was by Peters. I first heard it on 80sTVThemes many years ago. This SoundCloud posting is from someone who worked in radio/TV in Sacramento at the time: https://m.soundcloud.com/loopala/kcra-tv-we-take-you-there-1981 And KLXT77 posted video some years back: However, it's most likely that this was only a promo campaign, and not a news theme.