One of the things I noticed about this is how smaller-market WBTW looked at the time. Robeson and Scotland counties (NC) hadn't been added to the DMA yet. They looked more Pee Dee-focused... Myrtle Beach was on the cusp of the explosion in growth it experienced in the 1990s, so it's no surprise there are only a couple Grand Strand shots in the open. I would've expected a golf course flyover in there, but Myrtle just wasn't quite there yet.

This is an improvement. I never cared for the old logo... it was a bastardization of the 2003 logo.

My big find this weekend! FINALLY, a WBTW news open from the 80s.

I think those came out in the spring... March-ish

Futureproofing

In the podcast, Kalehoff notes that Drew wanted the theme updated because he noticed it was in mono and sounded flat. The 2007 update made it stereo.

KJRH in June 1989 with "The Image Leader"

I hear NewsAge...

Thanks to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, all episodes of UNC-TV's North Carolina Now from its 1994 premiere through July 31, 1998 are available online for viewing. In searching the archive, I came across the composer for the original "cheesy 1990s talk show" theme in the credits roll: a company called Scores (not related to Score Productions). You can see an episode with an nice, long 1-minute closing with the theme here I can't find any information about Scores... it sounds like this company has been out of business for quite some time. I assume it was North Carolina-based.

FINALLY! That's long overdue.

Parts of WSLS's 11:00 news from May 16, 2000. By this point, Chris Clausen became the station's VO.

The graphics/animations themselves look pretty good for Nexstar. Probably one of the better packages they've put out lately. But that color scheme is gross and looks like a PowerPoint 2007 template. Those two shades of blue do NOT work together.

I'll nominate this one from WCIV... that unnecessarily huge text. eek It presumably replaced a fairly decent open with Ultra News... I don't know if there may have been another open with Overture prior to 2004/05

Come to think of it, WILM is picking up 25 Words or Less. I've seen them run promos for it.