Just realised that we haven't mentioned the ugly ducking of the insane BBC World original vamp, the overnight News 24 version without thunderclaps. Which for no apparent reason was also a semitone higher and therefore sounded strange next to the titles.
The discussion about the lack of instruments in the modern versions is really interesting. When you listen back to even the 1999 N24 headline music there is an additional sort of popping drum beat that doesn't exist in the modern version.
I also have to agree with what has been said about the utterly tedious 400 year long headline sequences and the hideous practice of restarting the headline bed. I'm sure there's been some sort of research that shows having boring soundbites in the headlines is wonderful but I can't stand it.
It all started with News 24's 2003 revamp when they had that second half of the headlines by the projector for no reason. It was always the crap headlines too. Rubbish.
Yay! No discussion of BBC News music is complete without the overnight vamp!! I was always bemused as to why it was a higher pitch than the normal BBC World versions. I was told that it was edited internally by the BBC for overnight usage. The idea was to extend the intro thunderclap so as to allow more opting in time for BBC World. But that doesn't explain why it was a semitone higher. What's even more bemusing is why it was never corrected in probably about 2 or 3 years!
The point about the instruments - I spent some time earlier comparing some of the recent themes with the original versions. The change for the worse is quite apparent. As has been said, fewer instruments/fxs are used now, which makes the music sound dull. Even the most plain bits and pieces of the original music had more to them than the majority of current music.
Moreover, there's been a growing tendency to merely add whooshes on top of the countdown, titles and stings. Whooshes don't make up for missing instruments. And lastly, comparing modern and old packages it's easy to spot just how formulaic all the cuts have become. All the vamps are the same track with or without strings. All the stings are the same, but just short and long versions and with/without holds. The closing music on World is just a long and boring build-up to the National closing sting. It all lacks variety. Compare that to 1999/2000 where each package was a unique composition and even within packages not one sting was duplicated with only minor changes. Each and every cut was totally unique. That's where it's all gone wrong in my opinion.