The Birth And Growth Of A News Theme

The ITV News Theme was used in Season Two of The West Wing as the theme tune for "Capitol Beat". Just a happy little nugget of information...

ITV dropping it's famous news theme? Can somebody confirm when or where this was announced?

Here's what I heard... As mentioned, "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home" started off as a song composed by a local Chicago folksinger, back in the 70s. Someone from CBS heard it, and thought it would make a great news theme for WBBM 2 in Chicago. So CBS bought the copyright of the song from the folksinger, and had a guy called Dick Marks compose a news theme for WBBM based on the 10-note signature. The theme was then brought over to the other CBS O&O stations, like WCBS New York, WCAU Philadelphia (which later went to NBC) and KNXT (later KCBS) Los Angeles. So it started at one station in the chain, and was brought over to the others. Most people wouldn't know the signature came from "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home" anyway, so they don't really have a problem. And really, those 10 notes are strong and distinct, so maybe that's why they went with it.

I ocne heard the Central News East 1991 music used for a local radio ad in about 1998... confused me no end at the time

Don't forget that the ITV News Theme, shares the the same music with a radio station's news bulletins, I forgot the name of the station but it was in America, it was called K-something or other. Plus the Channel 4 News theme was used in the Clint Eastwood movie; Pale Rider.

Well that narrows it down to every station west of the Mississippi River.

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Don't know about a K-station using the ITV News theme, but WBAL AM1090 in Baltimore, Maryland definitely uses/used it.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, ITN bulletins were introduced by pieces of library music, and there was never anything to stop others using the same music for different uses. "Non Stop" by F. Malcolm was used for all the main bulletins until "News at Ten" started in 1967, and for that programme, several short sections from the first part ("The Awakening") of Johnny Pearson's epic work "Twentieth Century Portrait" were edited together to create the now legendary title sequence.

Later ITN commissioned a reworking of this music, and since it was owned by KPM Music, they retained the rights and issued the resulting piece on a new library disc. (The disc in question also includes the themes for Channel 5 News, The Bill, Trisha, Grandstand, and a whole host of other programme themes that belong to KPM Music.)

The Channel 4 News theme is indeed available on Bruton, but the library release came several years after the music first appeared on air.

Five News doesn't have an issue with its on air look, it keeps it fresh and up to date, other programmes including Sky News have used techniques invented at Five News so when everyone around you is taking your ideas its important to keep changing them. If anything its Sky News with an on-air identity crisis, the music doesn't fit the vision and the last relaunch was utter rubbish, the astons are too big, you can't fit anything on a slug and it took them about a year to work out how to do a decent video wall item. The opening to each hour is screaming out for something to happen and nothing never does, the westminster studio looks far better than the studio at Sky Centre and even that was changed after the relaunch with the wood panels being covered up and the projectors being put in.

Next time Sky relaunches they should think of the bigger picture, something the likes of CNN do well, all the emphasis was on the newswall and not the rest of the set.

That was completely uncalled for mate.