promoguy98

 

I'm in love, I'm in love! WCSC 1995 "Live 5 Newshour" open with a new theme, the awesome voice of Don Harrison and great video work!

 

Awesome discovery! In hearing the close, the rhythm instrumentation sounds close to SAM's Wall to Wall Breaking News cut. May be a custom theme package he created for them. If not, then it's most likely a synth rhythm preset that someone else used.

 

To hear what I'm talking about, go check out NewsMusicNow and click on the breaking news audio clip from Wall to Wall News.

Hmm maybe it's a Gari theme afterall..haha he seemed to be inspired by the show.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5ob90mqxrp8clf/gari_loves_er.mp3

 

What *was* Project Pride, anyway?

 

Also, a non-news item: short-lived Richmond independent WVRN-63 in 1986 with JAM's "

" (the one WJZ commissioned).

 

Recalling as much as possible, apparently there were some riot and race issues that were heightened in the area during that time. I do not remember what sparked the divide and exactly what the issues were that prompted the station to stand up and take the advocacy role that they did. I once had a conversation with Mike Thomas? Believe Thomas was his last name, who was the Marketing Director there during that launch and with the GM sometime in the early 90's. They both told me pretty much something along the lines of what I've mentioned. They both shared how it had major impact and was a boom to their ratings both in news and outside of news programming.

 

All going by memory here - Building Pride, which Shelly Palmer produced a news package and image campaign for in the early 90's, originally started as "Project Pride - Taking/Building Pride in the Ark-La-Tex" in the mid to late 80's. It was the station's answer to unite the community and push for positive change. The campaign was focused on public service, special news projects and was used heavily as a promotional tool. In the early 90's it transformed into the Building Pride era with the Shelly Palmer music and image campaigns.

 

- This video file contains a number of news stories from 1986 concerning the FNB purchase of BBT. One clip to note is a KSLA news open from that year. You can see it at 6:09.

 

Nice job KnoxvilleTVFan! Hopefully in time some additional KSLA clips will pop up from the mid to late 80's showing off more of what they did. If memory doesn't fail me, KSLA unseated KTBS in the 80's in the ratings around this period, due to their launch of the "Project Pride" campaign that began and lasted throughout much of the early 90's.

Here's a weekend find and share of a 2 part anniversary song campaign. KCCI, A Proud Tradition. KCCI used a song in 1980, presumably from Tuesday Productions to promote their 25th anniversary. I say presumably because it's not listed in BMI/ASCAP as far as I can tell, but they were using Tuesday throughout much of late 70's and well into the 80's.

 

The cool thing about their 25th and 50th anniversary songs, to me, is how they spent the time to rework many of the same lyrical ideas from the 1980 campaign into the 2005 composition. The lead vocals of the 50th anniversary song is none other than Wayne Nelson who was Tuesday Productions' Creative Director and is today, the owner of the company. A ton of stations could learn from how KCCI branded their anniversaries and tied them in together. Kudos to that station for actually keeping up with their history, their image songs, the records of what they've done and tapping into that rich legacy in a very consistent way. It doesn''t get much more powerful than that! Perhaps if they haven't had a lot of turnover, we'll see a reworked third version of the song for their 60th anniversary next year. If so, that's how you do it!

 

Here are the videos:

25th anniversary -

50th anniversary -

 

audio only in my shared folder.

 

Any clue as to who did the WMAQ 1997 News Theme?

 

That one would be a super win for one of us to figure that on out. The instrumentation has always reminded me of a different package I've heard before, I just can't pinpoint the sound. I'm surprised that it's remained a mystery for so long.

 

 

While not complete or exhaustive, this incomplete list of TM reference reels from the '80s does not include any Shreveport TV stations.

 

We have some additional ones that aren't on there (WPDE with Get to Know Us) but we don't have everything that is (e.g. KDRV with Spirit of Ohio or KOLD with Spirit of Texas). (Speaking of that list last year I landed a 1.8 second partial sample of

, which the list has (look for the "Action News" snippet) but the NMSA will not take it as proof because it's too short.)

 

Ah thanks Raymie. I had to pull up one of those WPDE clips from that era

just to get another laugh or two. Nothing more exciting that a retro news car blazing up and coming to a bouncing and screeching halt as the reporter bolts from the vehicle with a story so exciting that he leaves his door open, but somehow forgets his 60 pounds of early 80's camera gear haha

 

Dallas...was TM Productions based there? I would have said JAM but it doesn't sound quite like them.

 

Yeah TM had crossed my mind. Agree that it doesn't sound like anything JAM has done. Others that crossed my mind were Loomis Productions and didn't want to rule out the possibility of it being a random small package from Toby Arnold or even Stephen Arnold from when he was solo during that period of time. The only other major players that I can think of based in Dallas or who did sessions in the city would be Ken R., Firstcom or VTS.

 

I'm not really sure where to find it. It's not in the NMSA, nobody has submitted it yet. I remember how the melody went (there was a telegraphic sound in parts of it), all I can tell you is that the end refrain of the piece is similar to the commercial break bumper used on The Rush Limbaugh Show during that period.

 

Thanks for the info. All of that helps a little. Shreveport doesn't happen to have a ton of BMI/ASCAP entries as some other markets do. Yeah, there are some, but not nearly enough titles with station call letters attached to the name, which makes finding some of these feel like going through a rat maze.

While I ponder the piece tmanokc posted about, I'm also curious about a theme used in that market. I used to visit some family there as a kid between 88-91. Who am I "kidding" I'll grow up when I'm put in the ground! Anyway, it's a KSLA piece. The NMSA has the theme listed as KSLA 83.

 

A couple of things, I do remember a much faster variation used on their 5 o'clock show, that was much more upbeat and lasted well into 1990, while the other newscasts had been using the Aircraft/Soundtrack cuts... Secondly, being the music geek that I am, I visited the guy there who was the "audio" production director. Believe it or not, they had that position at the time. He mixed, reworked and EQ'd their commercial and promotional pieces. Now - he did tell me that it came from Dallas. That's all I know! He was also nice enough to dub off all of the tracks they used on the other newscasts from the Aircraft CD's. I should have pressed for more info and got a copy of the "Dallas" stuff. I suppose that at least knowing it came from Dallas narrows it down a bit.

 

Check out the cut in my dropbox folder titled: ksla 83-88_unknown.mp3 if anyone wants to take a stab at it.

 

We believe it's Silvertree because their client list includes KGTV, and it has to be pre-2001. Also Silvertree was *in* San Diego, like Peters and Tuesday.

 

Glad you guys mentioned KGTV using this theme again... I must have somehow overlooked the fact that they used this theme, along with the Channel 7 newscast link that someone had linked earlier in the thread. That's a nice long example of the theme too! Agree with Raymie that Silvertree seems to be the top thought being that they were in the same market and based upon the Silvertree client list. We have also pondered over the idea if Silvertree had composed the WTOG 1993 - WAKA late 80's/early 90's theme. With Bo Donovan having passed away in recent years, gotta wonder if anyone still even has access to any paperwork or reels or if all of that material met the fate of the mean, green dumpster long ago.

Yep that's the one CircleSeven. I am mobile at the moment and couldn't do a reply with quote and get the cursor outside of the reply box easily... So, anyway there were apparently a few mixout variations. For the first time, I just heard "hints" of the WGN 1980 news open a few seconds into the last YouTube video that you embedded. Tell me if you can hear what I'm talking about around 11 seconds into the movie open, same goes for TServo2049 and anyone else. If this is the case. I suspect it's all custom work from potentially TMK-Elias. If it's not them, another co. that comes to mind would be Tuesday Productions. Hopefully we can get a confirmation over some of these works fairly quickly.

 

EDIT: also CircleSeven check out the link that I shared of the "WGN and You" jingle from earlier today. I also saved the audio only in my drop box folder labeled: wgn_jingle_e80s

 

And as for KWGN - which package do you think might have been the Terry Fryer one? ASCAP also lists an image campaign and a movie theme. I can't find any promos or movie opens/bumpers from KWGN in that period - if I could, maybe I could find a melody that matched one of the news themes...

 

My first thought after giving one listen to each unknown open would be the 1993 theme. I'll help stay on the lookout for any new uploads for KWGN stuff on Youtube.

 

And as for KWGN - which package do you think might have been the Terry Fryer one? ASCAP also lists an image campaign and a movie theme. I can't find any promos or movie opens/bumpers from KWGN in that period - if I could, maybe I could find a melody that matched one of the news themes...

 

Hmmm, only if we could find a movie or image campaign that would take the guess work out of it. I'll go have a listen through the late 80's to early 90's stuff on the NMSA just to see if anything there reminds me of his WGN sound.

 

"Oh, What a Good Friend" wasn't one of the ones listed in the Copyright Office, but that doesn't mean it wasn't them. I was just saying there were compositions listed that were dated as early as 1980. There's "Hey, Look at Us", "Hold That Smile" and "You're Gonna Fall for Us" all dated 1980 (don't know if any of these were used) and "WG"N"tertains You" from 1982 (I know this was - a program with that title shows up in TV listings from '82, and someone on FuzzyMemories says the WGN-tertains You music was used on the Late Movie in the late 80s/early 90s.)

 

Ted Kay was formerly a writer in WGN's Sales Department before he co-founded TMK-Elias, so they probably did a lot of WGN's custom music in the 70s-80s. Perhaps it was even a Frank Gari/WEWS situation, where they did all of it.

 

Gotcha, now some of this information adds up. The signature and style of "Oh, What a Friend" is somewhat similar to the "WG"N"tertains You" material! You are probably correct in that they did a mix of custom things, especially with the Ted Kay connection and being right there in the market. Easy, fast and able to get stuff done!!

 

The WGN 1984 promo campaign was by a Chicago production company called TMK-Elias. The lyricist of the promo song, Lynn Sanders, mentions it in her bio. Since the 1984 news theme has the same melody, I'd wager they did it too. (BMI lists "WGN News" and "We're Chicago's Very Own" written by Sheldon Elias, and the U.S. Copyright Office lists "We're Chicago's Very Own" by Sheldon Elias and Theodore M. Kay. No mention of Lynn Sanders, but whatever...)

 

TMK-Elias also did other campaigns for WGN that are listed in the Copyright Office, some dated 1980. So not only do I have a hunch they did the 1980 news theme, but perhaps they did "WGN: Oh, What a Good Friend" too.

 

Oh, and BMI also lists two more curiosities for Sheldon Elias: "WHTM News Package" and "WISC TV News Package". Perhaps those are their respective "I Love Chicago"-alike packages?

 

Sheldon Elias is no longer with us, but Ted Kay is still alive and kicking. Maybe he'd know.

 

I find it hard to believe WGN only used "Oh, What a Good Friend" for a year or LESS. Your theory makes sense over the reasoning that it may have been by the same company. Some of those clips in the song sure don't look to be 1983. I would have guessed 80 or 81, perhaps that jingle lasted a little longer than believed on the Fuzzy TV clip site. I recall seeing a Youtube ID with just the instrumental ID variation of "...the Good Friend" theme.. which may have been listed as 1982. I'll have to go take a look. Also a :10 or :15 second variation was used for one or two of their many movie openers well into the late 80's or early 90's.

 

Great info and background over the late Sheldon Elias!

 

Is it possible to identify the composers of these themes?:

* WGN Nightbeat Theme

* WGN 1980 News Theme

* WGN 1984 News Theme

* WGN 1991 News Theme

* WPIX 2010 News Theme

* KTLA 1962 News Theme

* KTLA 1970 News Theme

* KTLA 1982 News Theme

* KTLA 1990 News Theme

* KTLA 2005 News Theme

* KWGN 1988 News Theme

* KWGN 1991 News Theme

* KWGN 1993 News Theme

* KWGN 1995 News Theme

* KWGN 2008 News Theme

 

I can help out with at least a couple of these that I have personally confirmed.

 

CONFIRMED:

WGN 1991 - Terry Fryer Music of Chicago

KTLA 1990 - VTS Productions - this is one package that a few of us were recently talking about in the thread.

 

SPEC:

WGN 1984 - quite possibly was produced in Chicago since the vocal campaign to Chicago's Very Own was locally produced.

 

Speaking of WGN, here are a couple of other tidbits.

 

Before Chicago's Very Own launched in 1983, earlier that year (possibly 1982 is my guess) they had another super-short lived jingle and image campaign - it was titled: WGN - Oh, What a Good Friend. Some of those musical elements lived on several years in random places, such as movie intro elements etc etc.

 

Here is the link to the 82-83ish jingle:

http://www.fuzzymemories.tv/index.php?c=590

 

promoguy98 made the find, but it deserves to be shared because it's quite a collection.

 

News 4 = KRCG 1986 = All We Are, We Are for You (under the latter title). The theme is listed THREE times in the NMSA and was in total used by four stations: KRCG (which had resings of it as "Depend on Us, 13", KTHI, WISC and WTOK. It appears to have been commissioned by WISC, and that's where we have the most examples of it. They used it up until the early 90s.

 

Here's a full minute, undisturbed, of the theme (KRCG cut), and a promo with the WISC open cut. WISC also had Tuesday sing over that cut for the "city" jingle.

 

There were other jingles: the rural jingle (second version), country, pop and contemporary. The last two have Wayne Nelson, of the Little River Band, on the lead; he later bought Tuesday and moved it to Florida.

 

The WISC jingles are awesome stuff I hadn't heard before I got this one. He apparently once had the full demo.

 

Oh yeah thanks for posting. Forgot about mentioning it! I discovered that guy's clips one day when doing a search for news promos and opens on youtube. The buy and move of Tuesday Productions happened fairly recently... like 2012 / 2013ish.

Not sure if it's been mentioned in the earlier thread, but surprised to see where Jerome Gilmer is the creator/composer of "KHOU Stands For Houston".. I know he had planned to get out of writing news music, but it looks as if he's still into doing some image campaigns. His site mentions that he's picked up multiple emmys and has created multiple song versions since the campaign was commissioned.

 

http://gilmermusic.com/author/jeromegil7794com2180/

http://gilmermusic.com/whats-new/

 

Very interesting. Maybe Gari licensed it - he licensed Cool Hand Luke for NS2000, so it wouldn't be unprecedented. (And remember Telesound licensing Classical Gas - there was also a cut in TM's "Where You Belong" which incorporated Classical Gas, since WBAL was using the Telesound version concurrently with "WYB.")

 

I've been trying to get in contact w/ David Lucas too (about another theme he may have done - ASCAP lists him and Tom McFaul as doing a WRGB news theme which may be WRGB 1986)

 

The main Great News theme did not originate from this "We're with You" promo song - the verse melody was just worked into several cuts. And remember that the "We're with You on 11 Alive" musical phrase already originated from Gari, via the original Hello News song - specifically, the ending of the Florence Warner version. (That phrase was even worked into one cut of the 1983 Hello News update - the notes match up with WXIA's earlier Hello tagline "It's All Right Here on 11 Alive.")

 

Great info!! I had totally forgotten about the ending of the that version of the Hello song and how the tag notes match up. Maybe David Lucas and/or Jayne Critelli can shed some more light over all of this and you'll find answers over the1986 WRGB theme if you can ever track him down. You are right, it totally wouldn't out of the question that Gari may have licensed out that aspect of the deal to ultimately keep everyone happy, and in the end, he still make a boatload of money with the entire collection over the years. It would be a neat experience to understand how that all played out (from a licensing and cooperation standpoint), even if they couldn't dive into very deep specifics.

 

Here's a clip of WAVY using that KCRL open cut...

 

And that awkward moment when there's a clip of Barbara Ciara

 

Great find! Now we know it was mixed in there. Ya know, everytime I hear the faster portion of the VTS bump, I see a vision of Don Slater doing an ID and whipping his chair back around towards his little monitor with a expression of "will this blasted 4sec ID ever pad out to 10 seconds and get done) look on his face.

swingin' hog balls haaaa!! Oh the music, I'm not sure.... it could be a Firstcom track since they've used a few of their cuts for various openings, but I don't recall that cut from back in the day from being in their library. That's not saying it's not there.

 

Seems like I hear a couple of mix diferences between the clip right before :16 and after. (Mainly the sax) It may be a small theme package and not a library cut.... maybe someone else will know this one.

 

 

From the WTRF blooper reel, at 0:16:

 

 

According to link below, here is the original writer/composer and singer info of the original "We're with You on 11Alive" promo campaign for Atlanta.

 

Atlanta 11 Alive

(Jayne Critelli/David Lucas)

WXIA- Michael Bolton/Vivian Cherry, vocals

 

http://www.jaynecritelli.com/music/jingles.html - - the full length song is featured on the page.

 

Begs the question if Gari bought out this entire work, along with what became known now as the Great News Package, which was known as Hello News II and originally as News 88.

I did not realize how much of an influence Danny Pelfrey has had in helping to shape the mid-to-late 90's sound of Gari. Pelfrey has his own library Amusicom, and has produced for other major libraries such as Killer Tracks. Along with that has been a good deal of work with Gari, according to his website. http://dannypelfrey.com/credits.dp

 

Check out the track 10 library theme he did for Killer Tracks titled Rescue Squad.

http://www.killertracks.com/#/browse/browsed-results.aspx?selectedLabelId=8&PageNo=9&SelectedCDId=633

 

Here's an example of Rescue Squad used in the 1997 Fox Boston open following their main theme. It comes in as a vamp, which had me originally wondering why they were randomly throwing in a Gari theme out of nowhere... LOL

 

You will hear some defining synth/sampler elements (orchestral hits/drum hits, bass saw wave pads, keys) that were used heavily in the original series of the "Image News" package that Pelfrey helped compose. Listen closer for that #1 "go to" Jedi-sounding zap & swoosh combination sample that Gari has used in countless 90's productions.

 

Some of these sounds may originate from the Kurzweil 2000/2500/2600 sampler synth which was pretty much a "have to have" keyboard if you had a major music production house in the 90's. I do hear the "brass mix" preset of the Korg M1 that was and still is another go-to Gari preset in his 90s to present work.

To kick off a new week, thought I would ID another theme that I use to have a demo of (for confirmation purposes)....

 

It is called "Making a Difference" from Hal Brown's defunct VTS Productions. The main image song campaign, featured KUSA and was performed by Christian singer Sandi Patty. Several stations have used the news theme and/or vocal campaign. It's currently listed on the NMSA site as the "WRTV 1990 News Theme"

 

 

In the video, the theme starts at :30 seconds for the ID, then at :40 seconds for the full-length song.

 

Hopefully the embedded link shows up. Huge thanks to CircleSeven.

ENJOY!

 

Do you mean: Silvertree from the southernmedia-nmsa site?

That is the same company that handled KWCH 1993 theme.

http://www.southernmedia-nmsa.com/#4,0,49

 

Yeah, that Silvertree. In doing an internet archive search on their site, Raymie had discovered that WTOG is listed as a client. They are, but WAKA isn't, but either way, it still it isn't clear whether Silvertree did it or someone else. Still on the lookout for it!