ChesapeakeTV

Another newscast from WAVY-TV's archive; this time from October 4, 1983

Okay, hearing the bumper/close music in the clear proves to me that WAVY 1982 = Tuesday2. As if KGTV just so happening to use it at the same time wasn't enough evidence...

I feel 95% certain it's News Watch based on the bit at 13:47 - it lines up perfectly with this from NMN (though they label it as News Station, the signature lines up with News Watch).

As for the graphics, TVbD's list on their site did list KIFI around the same timeframe as that zombie KOTA package...

To me the production track sounds like it has that "90s FirstCom" vibe, particularly with the string instrumentation.

The mystery that is KREM continues...yet another unknown theme from them has surfaced, this time from late 1990.

If I had to hazard a guess at a timeline, I'd say this may have been picked up in '89 when Eric Johnson left, and was probably dropped for PNP in 1991 (it seems to go with a newsbreak theme I posted quite some time ago, and which was definitely used into '91).

[...] KSN from the late 90s: [...] The package is News Station from Gari.

Well, except for the cut from News Now that shows up way ahead of schedule for the topical...

There's also KRDO from 1987. The theme sounds like something KTXL had used earlier in the 80s:

Definitely the same (WRAL 1982). Do we even know anything about this theme? It almost has a vague VTS feel to me, but I forget if anybody's ever explicitly mentioned anything about it.

No Eyewitness News close at the end of this premiere edition.

Maybe not in the close, but that ID at the very beginning sounds like what WLS uses in the morning...

A WJHL news promo from 1985:

 

<snip>

This is more like '86 or '87, given the footage of the Challenger disaster that shows up.

On the drone front, WAVY has become the first station in Hampton Roads to add one to its arsenal.

Now that you mention it, I think it's pretty definite they're one in the same, or at least share a musical logo. Listen right after Bill Walker is named in the open...the signature is spot on with the beginning of that tease cut.

What I can only assume is just a snippet of a KNBC promo for NewsCenter 4, 1978:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=dlWk7LKefCM;m=2;s=16

Oddly enough it turned up on a PAL tape, along with 2+ minutes of other KNBC bits. Features the WOC 1980 theme, which I begin to suspect might be production music of some sort.

(In case the timed embed didn't work for you, the promo is at 2:16 in the video.)

More sad news, this time from Albany. The Times-Union there reports that longtime WRGB anchor Ed O'Brien has died of cancer. He was 59.

On behalf of all of us here at TVNT, my sincere condolences and prayers to Mr. O'Brien's family and colleagues.

Even more WTAJ...

It turns out they kept using the original Action News Theme alongside the custom orchestral version. From November 4, 1990, the open to the Action News Nightbeat:

From Christmas Day 1976, the 11 PM report of WTAJ's TV10 Action News, featuring a looong (4 minutes!) special close.

The channel also has other bits and pieces from WTAJ in the late 70's and early 80's.

Wow, what an incredible find! The open isn't even all that bad for the market size...

That's a good point, but on the other hand, Hearst also owns several reasonably strong NBC affiliates (WBAL and WYFF come to mind). So it's not quite assured.

NBC's jockeying for an O&O in Boston? This could get interesting. From what I've gathered Mr. Ansin is not likely to sell anytime soon...

I'm not quite sure what to think of the article's speculation about NECN getting NBC programming. It sounds so stupid - but then again, they do raise a point about the spectrum auction. I still don't see it happening unless NBC was really desperate though. As was pointed out, they could even try flipping WNEU to an English O&O. Stranger things have happened...

Awesome redesign. Definitely a huge improvement over the hot mess they had before...

It also seems to leave WRC as the station most likely to have commissioned NewsCenter II...which ties together with how many different things they did with the first theme.

You know, listening to it now, it really does make sense that it's Tuesday. Surprised no one made the connection with the instrumentation earlier.

Speaking of Park, not sure if this has been posted before, but I ran across this on WTVR's YouTube channel...the "Virginia Vote '85".

Unfortunately there's no sign of whatever theme they might have been using regularly at the time, though the election theme is "Declarations Of Independence" from the Network Music library.

An open from WCKT with "Count on Us" has surfaced. Would love to see that.

All the Telesound material this update came from the demo reels eyeontv uploaded a while back. That open in particular crops up here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=nv5XkuNINi0;m=6;s=7

From 1970, KPLR's noon news featuring a young Tom Ryther, long before his days in the Twin Cities.

 

WJAR News Open Compilation (1974-2014)

 

Tale note at :20 because it shows a news open featuring a theme that WTVX used for its newscasts in the mid 1980s.

 

This was posted on another board I frequent. Features assorted KGMB and KHON snippets from the 1986 and 1994 tsunami events. Notably, at several points the KHON 1995 theme appears ahead of schedule: https://vimeo.com/25043699#t=256s

 

The reason I even suggested it was because Narragansett ran WPRI and WTKR sort of similarly from a design/presentation standpoint.

 

It seems probable to me that at least some of their graphics came from the same place - there seems to be a fair bit of TVbD influence in the WPRI open (compare its background color scheme with the 1990 KPNX work), and we already know some of what WTKR had at the time was heavily drawn from the same formula.

 

WPRI 1991, News Series 2000. Is this Beau Weaver? Earliest open from WPRI with this package I've seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmZy4NlbxUU

 

I'm not 100% sure on the beginning ID, but the actual open is very definitely him. Sounds at least somewhat similar to his VTS package era WFLD work.