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Unusual newscast titles

WWBT-12 in Richmond, VA called their evening newscasts "The Scene Tonight" during the early and mid 70's. People thought that was pretty cool at the time - though it sounds pretty funky now!
 
As did sister station WBTV Charlotte. A variation on that
was "The Scene At 6" and "The Scene At 11" (WFBC, now
WYFF, Greenville, SC), and "The Scene At 6" and "The Scene
At 10" (WSMV Nashville). Also, WLOS had "Your World Today"
at 5:30 and "Your World Tonight" at 11 in the mid-'70s (they
were using the "Move Closer To Your World" package).
 
BRNout said:
WWBT-12 in Richmond, VA called their evening newscasts "The Scene Tonight" during the early and mid 70's. People thought that was pretty cool at the time - though it sounds pretty funky now!
Click to expand...

As did WMAL-7 ( WJLA ) in Washington DC around the same time frame as well. And speaking of which...once a station drops a newscast title how long do they have the rights for it until another station can pick it up? I believe back around 2000 I seem to remember reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch about how WWBT wanted to call their news "NBC 12 Eyewitness News" only to find out that WRIC-8 still held the rights to that title in the Richmond market even though the last time channel 8 had used that title was back when they were still WXEX and that was several years prior. WWBT went on to use the "NBC 12 News" title instead.
 
In the late '70's, WBMG-42 (now WIAT) in Birmingham called their news "42 News Plus". The opening them was the instrumental opening from "Midnight Express". The few people who watched it called it a joke. By either '80 or '81, they dropped their newscast altogether, not to resume a local newscast until 1987.
 
Moline, IL (Quad Cities): From about 1978 to circa 1993-94, WQAD-8 (ABC) went by the moniker "Active 8" and thus their newscasts were known as "Active 8 News."

YouTube has some promos and openings for the WQAD news during the Active 8 era:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG4xC7JLbOo&feature=related (1981 promo. Jim King was a legendary Quad Cities newscaster--and also host of the QC's local version of the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon-- and was with Channel 8 from its Aug. 1, 1963 sign-on to his sudden passing in early 1999).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNozps364s (6PM opening from 1985--I would guess from the early part of that year)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCxepxZlV1I (Christmas promo from 1986)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj8rDW2o0Bk (1989 10PM opening--looks like from Christmastime that year)
 
hipman2 said:
Back in the 70s, KGTV called their newscast "The News"
Click to expand...

So did WAND-17, Decatur, IL (Springfield/Decatur/Champaign market) during at least the early-to-mid 1980s, as this aircheck from September 1985 attests (my guess would be about Sept. 18 of that year--because of researching the date of the Thursday Night MNF special between the Bears and Vikings, which was on Sept. 19, 1985 en route to the Bears' "Super Bowl Shuffle" championship season).

Little did anyone suspect then that 20 years to the month later the "big switch" would occur in the S/D/C market, with WAND moving from ABC to NBC,
swapping affiliations with WICS-Springfield/WICD-Champaign, who would become central Illinois' new ABC affiliates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is7LRbb9DQM (AWESOME opening news theme)

Channel 17 also used "The News" as their news title in 1982, as this September 1982 aircheck indicates (with a political "Before They Were Stars" moment indicated in the newsbrief and the newscast opening--but no theme was recorded in this clip):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aO8Vm0-nTE&feature=related
 
KeithE4 said:
Mike said:
For a time in Detroit, WJBK merged the "Eyewitness News" and "Newscenter" names to say "Eyewitness Newscenter".
Click to expand...

WTHR/13 Indianapolis did the same thing in the late '70s/early '80s. WRTV/6, in the same era, called theirs "The News," while WISH-TV/8 had "The Big News" going back to around 1970. No, WTTV/4 did not call their newscast "The Really Big News." ;D
Click to expand...

YouTube has a July 1977 aircheck of WTHR-13's newscast (with Paul Udell) during its "Eyewitness NewsCenter 13" days (the big switch in Indy was two years away--as indicated in Ernie Anderson's station ID announcement):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qTfl7AEdHg
 
KING-TV Seattle (NBC) debuted "KING Newservice" in 1971. It started as a roundtable, then quickly evolved into the "living room" format with no desk in '73. KNBC Los Angeles copied the name and concept for a time in the early 70's.
 
Charles1 said:
In the late '70's, WBMG-42 (now WIAT) in Birmingham called their news "42 News Plus". The opening them was the instrumental opening from "Midnight Express".
Click to expand...

You mean the music used for the Coast To Coast AM open?
 
WFIE-14-NBC in Evansville, Ind. used "Channel 14 Newslense" for most of the 1970s and perhaps into the early-1980s before branding as "Newswatch" (which lasted until 2006).

There's a few opens on youtube from that era, in the compilation videos posted by NewsActive 3. They are burried somewhere in the various compilations along with various other archive opens.
 
firepoint525 said:
Channel 6 in Paducah, Kentucky, had the "News Beat" slogan for many years, with the year following it during the '70s, as in "NewsBeat '73," "NewsBeat '74," "NewsBeat '75," "NewsBeat '76," etc. finally dropping the year beginning in 1977, and calling it just "NewsBeat 6," although it took their reporters some time to accustom to. Their logo was the "heartbeat" blipping across the bottom of the screen. They continued to use the "NewsBeat" theme for another 20 years or so.
Click to expand...

They would switch to NewsChannel 6 sometime during the summer of 1995.

But speaking of Paducah/Cape G/Harrisburg market, one that just occured to me is KFVS-12's "Heartland News," which they still use though I couldn't tell you how long it has been in use.
 
KTVO (ABC) in Kirksville, Missouri used "Extra Effort News" for the title of its newscasts from around the mid-70s (I think) to the very early 80s.
 
In addition to some of the Canadian ones already mentioned...

- "CKTV News Service" - CKCK/2 Regina during the 1980s, which earlier used the name "TelePulse"
- "ATV News 1" - noon newscast in the early 90s on ATV in the Maritimes
- "Dateline" - CKWS/11 Kingston, ON during the 1970s
- "Hour Glass" - used on a number of CBC O&Os in the late 60s/early 70s including CBUT/2 Vancouver and CBMT/6 Montreal
- "FYI" and "PM" - CFPL/10 London, ON for the 6 PM and 11:20 PM newscasts, respectively from the mid-60s until 1982. "PM" became FYI at 11:00 in 1982 when CBC's The National moved to 10 PM, and FYI was used until 1993 when it became "News Now".
- "Insight Newshour" - CKNX/8 Wingham in the 1980s until 1992, when the station was amalgamated with CFPL
- "Total News" - CKVR/3 in Barrie, ON during the 1980s. More unusual was their "VR Land News" from 1995-2002, after which it was shortened to "VR News".
- "Scan" - CKCO/13 in Kitchener, ON during the 1960s through the late 1980s. Prior to this they called their news "Alka-Seltzer Newsdesk".
- "Le 10 vous informe" - CFTM/10 Montreal in the 1970s. Some other stations in Quebec used similar newscast titles, including CKTM/13 Trois-Rivieres which used "Le 13 vous informe".
- "24 Hours" - CBWT/6 Winnipeg from 1970-2000. At one point also used on CBKT/9 in Regina, which apparently also once used "FYI". Also used as "24 Horas" on Televisa's national newscast in Mexico in roughly the same era as CBWT.
 
The old WJAN-TV 17 in Canton, Ohio used "Update" for the title of their news shows in the early 1970's..They used Mason Williams "Classical Gas" as theme music..I was naive enough to think that "Classical Gas" was written just for the newscast till I found out later it was a hit song..
 
Tim from Springfield said:
Moline, IL (Quad Cities): From about 1978 to circa 1993-94, WQAD-8 (ABC) went by the moniker "Active 8" and thus their newscasts were known as "Active 8 News."
YouTube has some promos and openings for the WQAD news during the Active 8 era:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG4xC7JLbOo&feature=related (1981 promo. Jim King was a legendary Quad Cities newscaster--and also host of the QC's local version of the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon-- and was with Channel 8 from its Aug. 1, 1963 sign-on to his sudden passing in early 1999).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNozps364s (6PM opening from 1985--I would guess from the early part of that year)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCxepxZlV1I (Christmas promo from 1986)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj8rDW2o0Bk (1989 10PM opening--looks like from Christmastime that year)
Click to expand...

I remember "Active 8"; that was during a period when a lot of stations were using monikers like "11 Alive" or--in Raleigh/Durham--"11 Togther." I wonder how many of these came from Peters Productions in San Diego?

Didn't someone (I want to say WJW) use the title "On The Scene News"?

For longevity, the champ may be "The Texas News" on WBAP/KXAS Ft. Worth. They used that title from their inception in 1948 into
(I think) the '80s; they were still using it in the late '70s when I lived in the Metroplex.
 
"Total News" isn't all that uncommon; another that had
it was WCTI New Bern, NC.

How many stations had "The Big News"? I keep thinking
KPRC Houston was one.
 
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