The Newsroom

Television News Theme Music - Creative Uses!

(May 2009)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
:-(
A former member
Spencer For Hire posted:
WW Update posted:
Anyone familiar with the hit 1960s instrumental Classical Gas by Mason Williams? Here is what it sounded like as a news theme (one part of it is used in the intro; others can be heard later on):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqK2T0dwUPg


And today's TV Forum bumper quiz question... Which ITV regional news programme also used Classical Gas as its closing theme in the late 70s / early 80s?

First correct answer will win a charming picture of a fluffy kitten.


Was it ATV news?
SP
Spencer
623058 posted:
Was it ATV news?


Our survey said...

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:-(
A former member
Was it Granda?
SP
Spencer
Congratulations. Granada Reports it was! Sadly I can't find any clips of it anywhere, although I remember it from the time, and a bit of Googling confirms others do too.

Anyway, here's your prize...
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DA
Dave Founding member
The Sky News music at the start of this long clip... think its from the old Sky News at Ten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBkJ11Mf2-A
WW
WW Update
Dave posted:
The Sky News music at the start of this long clip... think its from the old Sky News at Ten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBkJ11Mf2-A


Here is the Sky News at Ten intro from that period:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv2UFN7hQS4
Last edited by WW Update on 10 June 2009 10:03pm
SO
Steven O
Reporting Scotland, around the late 70s/early 80s, used excerpts from Emerson Lake & Palmer's 'Fanfare for the Common Man' and, later, Jeff Wayne's 'Jubilation' for their themes, along with the closing section of Donna Summer's rendition of 'Macarthur Park'. From what I can remember, 'Fanfare for the Common Man' was used more than once while 'Jubilation' was also used by LWT as the theme to The Big Match around the same time as Reporting Scotland were using it.

8 days later

WW
WW Update
From 1975, here is a clip of another station using a longer excerpt of Classical Gas in the intro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6hGpS9j-Ok
Last edited by WW Update on 18 June 2009 9:57pm

26 days later

FO
fox1
cityprod posted:

My favourite news themes amonst the many we've had...

ITN World News 1987-1994
ITN World News 1994-1998
ITN Weekend/Overnight/Morning News Late 1980s (Worked best with the Chromakey virtual backdrop, rather than the newsroom backdrop.)
BBC News 1999-2003 (all BBC News including regionals and News 24)
BBC World Service Television News 1991-1994......


I also love ITN's late 80s/early 90s "chroma-key" theme. Long cuts are basically non-existent in cyberspace! Can anyone help!!?? I have a longish portion on tape from the Morning News (used to get up religiously at 5:45am as a 12-year-old to catch this!!) at home in, err, another country. ITN with its funny chromakeys and nice anchor family was the bomb back then!

I also loved
The London Programme opening (the one version on YouTube is not the very best sample of this),
The World This Week (a C4/TVF co-production), dark and brooding, brilliant.
C4 Daily stuff,
Thames News from 1989.

Many of these are NOWHERE on the net!!
Last edited by fox1 on 14 July 2009 12:29pm

28 days later

WW
WW Update
Here's a part of the popular song MacArthur Park being used as a news theme in the 1970s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWarSBAE3FM

17 days later

KP
KelpieP0921
Does anyone know the name of the theme for itn news 1995-1999?
SD
Steve D
One of my favourites was 'Telegraph Hill' which introduced HTV's 'Report West' throughout the 1970s. Also Johnny Pearson's quirky 'Pop March' which was used by HTV Wales to introduce 'Y Dydd' during the same era.

Of the more modern themes, the Ed Welch's composition used by TSW for their first few years was very good too.

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