Greatest News Themes of All Time

For me, this era of News at Ten would be near the top of the list



Also the Guy Michelmore theme for South Today



I can't believe this thread has run for five pages without mention of Best Endeavours (C4 News)



I quite like the original Newsroom South East theme



LWT News (there are better/longer versions of the music elsewhere):

I also very much liked the extended version of the Sky News theme used for Sky News Today with Martin Stamford and Julie Etchingham circa 2004 - all round the best rolling news show on UK TV - never equalled or bettered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_CCoUa4WK

2006 is by far my favourite era of CNN. Theme and graphics were exceptional.

I think for me the original atrium shot at ITN with yellow and blue logo.

http://dai.ly/x39a5h

Branching out from standard news bulletins, I love this theme used a number of years ago by Danish DR2's "Deadline" - a nightly discussion/analysis programme. The music here seems beautifully pitched for a serious, reflective, insightful show.

My picks:

WHDH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Vy9W0rp24

Situation Room & Breaking News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PL7CEM2Lik

ITV News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOsJn4cnhvI

I was never a fan of those mid 90s orchestral themes and I think suddenly they became dated which was part of the reason why the BBC decided to go with a corporate look. Look East had one as well.


Like about 3 themes all in one, crashing from one to another, ok until 13 secs, then a little bit of something, then something else at 15 secs then something else again at 16 secs, plus the theme seems to end about 3 times as well.


I did like that one, fitted in well with the image of LWT

Totally agree with all three points. The only orchestral 90s themes I think really worked were the two different Spotlight ones used by BBC South West in Plymouth. The titles sequences were so OTT they kind of coped with the OTT nature of the music. I think most regions improved with the introduction of the generic BBC News music and titles, but like many here, I think Spotlight lost out.

This (much posted) edit shows just how awful some of the 1830 English regions and nations titles were ; though Look North in Newcastle was very well executed for the time.

I wonder if it was a case of "We've got all this new technology! Let's use all of it at the same time no matter how much of a mess it'll look like!"

I still like the BBC North West titles from 1995 though, thought they were executed well with a consistent theme across all of the regional programmes

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/bbc_northwest/bbc_nw_images/news/northwest_logos.jpg

I am still a bit of a fan of that early-mid 90s graphic design style I like to call "colourful, but dark" with lots of shadows, that NWT successful pastiched themselves when they left New Broadcasting House a few years ago

Indeed. Things like the random appearance of a crappy compass graphic about 3/4 of the way through those Look North (Leeds) titles, and randomly positioned on the right hand side of the screen, for example. Cramming-in everything that they were capable of doing, regardless of whether or not the finished result was in the slightest bit aesthetically pleasing.

The finished programme logo of the 1989 Newsroom South East titles (posted a bit further up, by Londoner) is an utter abomination against humanity. Having the "Newsroom" bit written downwards in a separate vertical stripe to the left, and with the "south-east-quarter-of-compass" bit looking frankly more like a "paper fan". I feel as though the screen has vomited into my eyeballs. I hope that all persons involved in creating such ugly sequences and/or logos quickly lost their media careers, and ended up shelf-stacking in convenience stores! Gah.

I agree that Newsroom South East logo was terrible, and when it flies off, the programme seems to be called 'BBC Newsroom'

I agree that the old Spotlight themes were great, also nice to see a fixed length headline bed leading into it rather than the long rambling headlines we get today.

Also that Look East desk set was an abomination also, there is also an older theme tune that sounds like a Crime programme, and also why they ever rebranded Points West to 'News West' I'll never know, it was such a non-name.

This isn't news, but whilst we're on the subject of late 80s/early 90s, can we please talk about this abomination of a title sequence? There is so much happening here that it's hard to understand what you're actually looking at

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