Favourite News Themes

I remember watching ITN World News on NBC Super Channel, but I didin't realise they had ever used anything other than the standard ITN logo used in the UK.

I remember watching NBC Super Channel in 1994 while working for 6 weeks In Turkey.
ITN World News drew heavily from C4 News reports. Tim Wilcox was a regular presenter
on there too.

Extraordinary to see a very European style continuity clock, with a very US CA !

https://youtu.be/Q7awfY4y-4M?t=5

I don't think it lasted too long with the off brand logo. I think World News rebranded in about late 1993 or early 1994, dropping the old late '80s era titles in favour of the ones shown in the clips above. Certainly by 1995 the ITN logo had been replaced by the proper standardised one that was (re-)introduced across all ITN programmes. So by my reckoning World News only lasted about a year with the unusual logo.

What I would *really* like to see is the later incarnation when it became "World News for Public Television" in the late '90s. There is no footage of that anywhere as far as I can tell, which is a pity. I guess it wouldn't be the top of most people's list of programmes to commit to VHS!

The only real change in title sequence was in 1988. Every other title sequence after that was basically the same zoom in to the Earth from space, with different logos and typefaces.

In 1993, the logo was used only on the same pre-title slide that was seen before all ITN broadcasts of that time, with the World News typeface being a more serious serif typeface, still using the old title music. Once NBC took over, the pre-title slide disappeared, and the letters ITN were back in the sequence in the same typeface as World News, flying into place, rather crudely. The new music also came in at that time.

It was later in 1995, when the ITN World News joined its ITV compatriots in the blue studio, with added virtual backdrop. Katy Haswell took over as the main anchor at the same time. I imagine the changeover between ITV's Early Evening News at 5:55 and ITN World News for NBC Super Channel at 6:00 was quite quick.

I'm a sucker for dramatic, orchestral themes, like this one from 1990s Dallas:

BBC Spotlight orchestral open

Apart from the ridiculously over sized BBC logo that still stands up as probably the best regional news intro ever.

Jesus that’s fantastic. Never seen it before.

Same great theme tune but with special titles

The previous incarnation of Spotlight I thought was pretty decent too, the theme tune is quite different but I quite like it too. Gives the panoramic coastline sweeps a bit of a pacier edge.

Here's another one from Japan - Starting Five by J Squad. It's been the news theme of TV Asahi's Hodo Station (報道ステーション, late night newscast, weekdays from 9:54 to 11:10 PM) since April 11, 2016. Definitely one of my favorites.

Live version of Starting Five

And another news theme from TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) 's N Studio since 2017.

Here are my two favorite news themes. I grew up watching them.
1) SMG-STV NEWS theme 1998-2006 (Shanghai, China) by 615 Music


Here's a link of the original cuts.
https://www.warnerchappellpm.com/stv-news-music-package/

2) SMG Dragon TV news theme 2006-now (Shanghai, China)