For those of you who wonder where TV news music comes from, there are a number of people out there on the Internet who track such things.
Perhaps the best such effort is “SouthernMedia’s News Music Search Archive”, a website which categorizes TV news and other theme music by package, location or other such search methods.
It even helpfully includes audio samples of news themes, imaging campaigns and the like.
One such local TV imaging campaign started as “The Spirit of Texas”, which has been a long-time slogan for Dallas-Fort Worth market ABC affiliate WFAA/8. Dallas-based TM Productions did the honors of creating it first for the hometown station.
Here…take a listen yourself to the audio sample of WFAA’s “The Spirit of Texas” image campaign, circa 1984 or so. Click the link, then the “>” (PLAY) button if needed.
Sound familiar, Northeast Ohio talk radio listeners?
Why, it’s the same theme used since the mid-1980’s by Media-Com talk WNIR/100.1, “The Talk of Akron”!
We’re not sure if this is the first/only case of a radio station, not affiliated with a TV station (at the time, at least), taking a TV station’s imaging campaign.
TM Productions (today’s TM Studios, as far as we know) certainly has a long history with radio station jingles, and it’s easy to imagine them pitching a re-sing of “The Spirit of Texas” TV imaging package for the Akron market radio station. We’re just not sure if the TM folks expected the theme to live on here in Northeast Ohio for over 20 years.
(For the folks reading from Texas, the local talk radio station here still uses its version of the theme today. Check out the web streaming link below on our WNIR item to hear!)
We just landed on this music basically by accident, and it surprised us. This may have been a known fact earlier, but we just figured it out nearly 25 years later.
By the way, click here to see the selections over the years for Cleveland market stations, and here for Youngstown market stations. Once you’re in the market listing, click on the TV set icon to hear news opens, and the “heart” icon to hear imaging campaigns.
Yes, there’s WEWS/5’s iconic “Catch 5”, along with news music and imaging campaigns from all the local stations in Cleveland.
Click on the name of the music/imaging package, and it’ll list the other markets using some form of the theme. Click on the small image of the U.S. next to the name, and it’ll map those markets for you.
If you’re a “local TV news” obsessive like your Primary Editorial Voice(tm), you’ll get lost listening and reading in there. And if you find any OTHER TV imaging campaigns used by local radio stations…let us know!
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