Hadn't seen this podcast info posted here before, so thought it might be of interest. It's a single music-oriented episode from the ongoing "Every Little Thing." This one looks at the history and importance of the opening music to television newscasts.
While it doesn't speak with them, it namechecks Hans Zimmer and John Williams, and offers some nice insights from other musicians involved with making music for newscasts.
In the UK, this one was probably best: see the evolution:
You can see at what point orchestras got expensive.
My pet hate is sexed-up 'emotional' music as background to serious documentaries on tragedies or disasters etc.. Very tacky. But general news show titles are an artform.
"News at Ten is famed for its use of the Big Ben clockface, the headline "bongs" and the dramatic and familiar theme music, all retained and reworked into various guises across five decades.
From 1967 to 1992, its opening and closing themes were straightforward excerpts from The Awakening, a piece of library music composed by Johnny Pearson. In 1992, composer Dave Hewson was appointed to produce a new arrangement of The Awakening. Since April 1995, Hewson has produced several rearrangements of the famous theme for all ITV News programmes.
The story of the adaptation of The Awakening was featured in an official TV tie-in book, although incorrectly referring to the title music as Arabesque:
“ The tune is called Arabesque and was written by Johnny Pearson, who went on to write many other television theme tunes. The decision to use it was taken only at the last minute and after the first week it was nearly dropped. Viewers were complaining it was too harsh. A composer from Disney was called in during the first week to write a new theme tune. But an ITN sound mixer called Alfie Wilson wanted to stick with the old tune. He took the original recording of Arabesque to a nearby music studio and got it remixed—smoothing out some of the strident tones of the original. By the second Monday of News at Ten there was still no decision on which piece of music to use. Just before the programme started, editor Geoffrey Cox said, "Let’s go with what we’ve got for the time being." Alfie played his remixed version on air and that’s the one that was played five nights a week until a new arrangement of Arabesque was created for the revamp in 1992. ” —?News at Ten: A Celebration, 1999 The most memorable series of News at Ten title sequences launched in 1969: a camera pan across the Houses of Parliament and up the Westminster Clock Tower, followed by a sharp zoom into the tower clockface and the programme name appearing on screen in time to the strident beats of The Awakening, and then the headline "bongs" played directly afterwards. Further refreshes of the opening sequence continued to use this basic concept for several years afterwards, even after the introduction of computer-generated titles in 1988 which tweaked the idea to incorporate a virtual flyover nighttime London. As part of the programme's 1992 revamp, the familiar sequence was replaced by simple camera shots of the clock tower and ITN's headquarters. In 2008, News at Ten reworked its 1988 flyover sequence for its relaunch. The programme used the same opening titles as other ITV News bulletins from 2001 to 2004 and again from 2009 to 2016, all loosely based on elements established by News at Ten title sequences from its early days. In 2016, a new title sequence was introduced focusing more closely on the traditional image of the Big Ben clockface."
I remember back in the late 60's or early 70's the local news on one station in New York , possibly Philadelphia, used the "stealing the lector" track from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. It was very memorable. A melodic and exciting introduction to the local evening news.
I remember back in the late 60's or early 70's the local news on one station in New York , possibly Philadelphia, used the "stealing the lector" track from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. It was very memorable. A melodic and exciting introduction to the local evening news.
That was KYW-Philadelphia (then the NBC station) which started using the "007" theme from FRWL. Al Primo the station manager was responsible for that and when he was then hired away to revamp WABC's newscast in New York, he created the "Eyewitness News" format that would use as its theme music Lalo Schifrin's "Tar Sequence" cue from "Cool Hand Luke". Primo described in an interview how he came up with that.
On November 17, 1968, Eyewitness News debuted on WABC. But not before deciding on the final element for the newscast.
“I’ve got all the people hired, got the set built, got the graphics done, and then I wanted some charging, moving, wake up, ‘get out of your chair and pay attention to the news,’ theme,” Primo recalls.
Using the resources of the extensive ABC music library, Primo and his director went to the ASCAP building, spending several hours searching for their opening theme. When they got to the soundtrack from Cool Hand Luke, Primo knew he found his sound.
“There was this one little section that was exactly right, [a] very throbbing, pulsating section,” Primo remembers. “But I think it was only about 12 seconds long.”
That was easily remedied by looping it several times.
Primo recalls the movie’s composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote scores for many films and TV themes, including Mission: Impossible, saying he got more questions and reaction to the Tar Sequence from Cool Hand Luke largely because of its Eyewitness News notoriety heard on ABC stations across the country.
You could spend hours listening to old US network news themes. What a great site. Still love the John Williams Today music rather than the one they use now..
Is that Lalo Schifrin's version of Elmer Bernstein's THE CARPETBAGGERS? I haven't watched the show since the 1970s, but my old memory is that they used to use the original (or at least the "LP re-recording original"). Probably wrong.
I remember back in the late 60's or early 70's the local news on one station in New York , possibly Philadelphia, used the "stealing the lector" track from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. It was very memorable. A melodic and exciting introduction to the local evening news.
That was KYW-Philadelphia (then the NBC station) which started using the "007" theme from FRWL. Al Primo the station manager was responsible for that and when he was then hired away to revamp WABC's newscast in New York, he created the "Eyewitness News" format that would use as its theme music Lalo Schifrin's "Tar Sequence" cue from "Cool Hand Luke". Primo described in an interview how he came up with that.
On November 17, 1968, Eyewitness News debuted on WABC. But not before deciding on the final element for the newscast.
“I’ve got all the people hired, got the set built, got the graphics done, and then I wanted some charging, moving, wake up, ‘get out of your chair and pay attention to the news,’ theme,” Primo recalls.
Using the resources of the extensive ABC music library, Primo and his director went to the ASCAP building, spending several hours searching for their opening theme. When they got to the soundtrack from Cool Hand Luke, Primo knew he found his sound.
“There was this one little section that was exactly right, [a] very throbbing, pulsating section,” Primo remembers. “But I think it was only about 12 seconds long.”
That was easily remedied by looping it several times.
Primo recalls the movie’s composer Lalo Schifrin, who wrote scores for many films and TV themes, including Mission: Impossible, saying he got more questions and reaction to the Tar Sequence from Cool Hand Luke largely because of its Eyewitness News notoriety heard on ABC stations across the country.
Yes,yes,yes. Thanks for verifying my recollection from over 50 years ago and I do remember now that musical sequence from Cool Hand Luke on Channel 7 in New York City.
