E. R.

WAND 10:00 news followed by Nightline, 1995 (after the 67th Academy Awards):

Update: they weren't able to find Reel #1, but they were able to send the other two reels for conservation treatment and digitization:

https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/63045

https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/63046

So Radio New Zealand changed their tune a couple of months ago, and people were up in arms because it was composed outside the country.

Quote

What makes a good tune to go with the news today? Big, bold and bombastic? Subtle and smooth? Trad or mod? Mediawatch asks a journalist with world’s biggest collection of news theme music - and get his picks of the world's best and worst.  

 

Recently RNZ changed the tunes they use for news - and not everyone was happy because they engaged a specialist commercial composer in Australia. 

 

Incidentally, the public broadcaster there - the ABC - has used the same tune for its radio news bulletins since the 1950s. 

 

Majestic Fanfare was written by British composer Charles Williams back in 1943 -- and it sounds a bit like it. 

 

Last month the ABC news show Backstory reported that every effort to retire the tune has met with stiff resistance. 

 

When the ABC started up a youth network called Triple J back in the 1990s they remixed it so heavily for their news bulletin that it doesn't even sound much like a fanfare anymore. 

 

So in 2022 is it best to go trad or mod for news music? Is old fashioned horn-heavy bombast still the order of the day? Or do we need something smoother and more subtle? 

 

One journalist who's heard more news themes than any other is Victor Vlam in the Netherlands. 

 

He has the world's biggest collection of news music from down the ages, including hundreds of themes on networknewsmusic.com.

 

Recently he told on Mediawatch making good themes is much harder than looks -- or sounds.

 

“There are stories of successful composers who have been asked to do music for television and who basically just can't do it.” he said. 

 

“You need to make your point very quickly, very succinctly. It is an art form in and of itself. News music is heard every single day for most pieces of news music. Some newscasts are on multiple times a day even - and it still needs to sound interesting to people,” he said. 

 

“It really needs to be able to withstand the test of time,” he added. 

 

What makes a good news theme?.

 

“It gives some gravitas to the show. It makes it sound important and people know that something important is coming up,” Vlam told Mediawatch.  

 

“Traditionally there's a lot of brass and a lot of strings. But some newscasts may want to emphasize the fact that they are very urgent, that they are on top of all the latest news. So they might have a very fast news theme with a lot of electronic elements. It depends on how you want to position your newscast - as opposed to other newscasts - which style you'd use,” he said. 

 

Typically US news music is more orchestral and Europe is more electronic. How come?  

 

“It is changing in the US. The theme the CBS has been used for the past three years has a lot of electronic elements. 

 

Australian news music has copied a lot from the US. The Channel 9 theme in Australia is a theme that was used by many ABC stations in the US from the movie Cool Hand Luke. 

 

“One of my all time favorites is the BBC News Theme by composer David Lowe. It's really a fantastic ‘countdown’ theme 90 seconds long which gets more and more intense. But it has the traditional BBC sound. It's changed news music, essentially and it's been used on the air since 1999. I always listened to that with a lot of enjoyment.” said Vlam. 

 

What's the worst news he;s [sic] ever heard?

 

“There is an ABC station in Philadelphia that has been using the same music since 1972 - and they they are still using the same exact recording to this day. It has lyrics and it's I guess people like it because it can be a bit catchy - but unfortunately, it sounds so incredibly dated. It’s unbelievable that this can still be used,” he said. 

 

“I think it just really horrible cheesy 1970s commercial music. I really hate it,” he said. 

 

“I think a lot of people have nostalgic feelings for the music that was used during their childhood years. I understand that but it's important the genre moves forward.”

 

So why did he get into collecting news music?

 

“From my early childhood, I just started recording music from television. I think it was six or seven years old at the time. As I got older, I started contacting the composers on the internet and asked them if they wanted to share it with me. 

 

Is there a community around news music? Or just Victor?

 

“Actually there is a bit of community there. I would say about 200 people collect news theme music, including some people who work in pretty high positions in the industry,” he told Mediawatch.

Here's KXAS from 1984, with what appears to be a Collier Concepts open:

9 hours ago, readingreporter said:

They did two paid advertising segments on it.

Sheesh.

On 6/7/2022 at 12:10 AM, capsgm2002 said:

Portion of a KUTV 1977 News Open (with Al Ham's On Top of It All... and you can see where Peru's Pantel got their influence from)

 

It's worth nothing that there are several full KUTV newscasts from the late-70's available from the University of Utah archives, though you'd have to be on campus or request these tapes.

https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv245086/

Well, here's a full open from the same year (though someone cropped it a little too close):

14 hours ago, capsgm2002 said:

Unfortunately, I think most of them are lost or damaged

14 hours ago, capsgm2002 said:

Reel 1 wasn't included. Reel 2 had "Sticky Tape Syndrome" which likely renders that unplayable and Reel 3 is mostly intact, save for a few tracks.

That's a shame.

14 hours ago, capsgm2002 said:

What's left of Reel 3 is mostly promo themes, but does include a portion of the news theme in the clear.

At least we got something out of it.

On the international front, here's a lucky find: a 1996 bulletin from defunct Turkish TV channel Has Bilgi Birikim (the country's fourth private TV channel, operational from 1992 to 2000), featuring Alan Hawkshaw's "Best Endeavours":

And here's a holiday version of KIRO-TV's Klein& image campaign!

I wanna know why they replaced the theme? I want to hear the 2016 theme again.

Over three hours worth of footage from KIRO-TV in 1985, including two more "Spirit of the Northwest" promos - the first one at 4:36 using the remixed Klein& cut, the second at 22:13 used one of the original cuts:

Plus some newsbreaks and promos (including another "Spirit of the Northwest" promo with that remix in Part 1 of the set) from the same year:

5 hours ago, Samantha said:

 

Some of it's been reposted from other YouTubers (and a lot of it somehow I'd never seen!), but I think it's important to point out that all these newscasts aired on just two channels!

 

Colombian mixed system TV is both a delight and also a nightmare to figure out.

Sometimes, I wonder: what if Colombia adopted the Netherlands' pillarized model of public broadcasting?

A compilation of material from Channel 10 Melbourne on the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, with some glimpses of Collier Concepts' work for the station:

2 hours ago, dpb said:

The reason that Move Closer works on WPVI and WNEP is because of nostalgia. Al Ham's music -- to his credit -- is distinctive, even for its time. But if a new station adopted it, it would be widely criticized by viewers. Al Ham's spiritual lyrics and cheesy melodies do not fit into today's culture.

Well, "On Top of It All" isn't "Move Closer to Your World". It sounds completely different.

Also, here's a collection of material from various Colombian newscasts in the 80s and 90s:

Most (?) of 24 Horas, one of the Colombian separate newscasts in 1986:

With that, here's an HQ version of the graphics:

On 12/23/2017 at 1:47 AM, WWUpdate said:

And here's the launch edition of CityPulse -- I mean Citynoticias -- from CityTV in Bogota, Colombia, 1999:

 

 

 

And here is the full version (unfortunately, this copy has a few glitches in the encoding):

Is there anyone who has full audio cuts of this theme? 

I think it holds up surprisingly well to this day, it wouldn't be out of place in a modern newscast.

You guys remember this Klein& theme, right? I don't know for the life of me what that was all about.

But anyway, apparently it found use on Panamericana Television in Peru for their news program Panorama. 
Here's one example in 1986 (at the end):

A 1991 close with that theme:

50 minutes worth (but probably incomplete, since no credits are shown) from the same year:

Around 1992, they started remixing the theme:

1998 remix:

A year later, it seems to have been remixed and rearranged again:

Definitely rearranged in 2000:

Of course, it was bound to have been retired by 2001, as this clip suggests:

If anyone can find full versions of this program, do tell.

A bulletin from CFCN Calgary c. 1988 (w/full voiceover; apparently it's Beau Weaver, per the NMSA):

From Papua New Guinea's first television network, EMTV (at one point owned by Nine Network Australia):

A history of their news operations, including audio of their version of the "Who's Who of News" campaign, plus shots of their news set:

A 1989 tape consisting primarily of advertisements, but glimpses of the title sequences for National EMTV News (one segment showing that they too used Nine Network's version of "Tar Sequence" and the ABC News globe - they're still using the 2000 National Nine News version of that theme to this day, actually) and Bisnis (a business program in Tok Pisin, a creole language) plus their version of "Still the One" (also in Tok Pisin) and the open of a weather bulletin from former Nine affiliate QTV in Queensland near the end of this video:

And as a bonus, a 1987 promo from that campaign:

NWS-9's Nine Action News weather update, with "Tar Sequence":

On 1/8/2008 at 4:11 AM, stevieboy247 said:

WDVM Test News Opens 1984

 

Evidently, this video suggests what the NMSA labels as the "KNTV 1985 News Theme" was intended to be used by (if not composed for) WDVM.

And speaking of which, here's two opens from KNTV, which does use the theme and with Collier Concepts' animation work, so it doesn't seem like a waste.

6PM open (unfortunately someone - the person recording the tape? - overdubbed the open):

11PM open:

And of course, KGMB used it too (sourced from a documentary, which I'm also posting here):

And the accompanying promos:

Apparently, the theme the NMSA labels "KNTV 1985 News Theme" was intended to have been used for (if not composed for) WDVM: 

Back to Australia and 1981, coverage of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan as recorded in Melbourne.

ATV-10:

GTV-9 (including a snippet of the original "Tar Sequence"!):

ABV-2:

Channel 0/28 Multicultural Television (now SBS):