promoguy98

Sinclair fills GM position at Birmingham stations with Eric Land. For those who may remember, Land was once the GM of WBMG 42 and was at the helm when the relaunch to WIAT 42 happened in the late 1990's. http://www.adweek.com/tvspy/sinclair-fills-gm-position-at-birmingham-station/149502

Quick montage of WAAY-TV 31 "This is Home" branding. I think someone doing VO like Jim Cutler would be a better fit.

Following up from my post in January about Channel 31 in Huntsville.... They are beginning to use more audio from This is Home and further use of the NPG graphics. Linked below is some type of segment open using a news package cut. Still a guess that they'll transition to the full news package and graphics soon if they haven't recently done so. In my opinion, compared to what's been on the air on that station over time, this is some of the cleanest stuff on the eyes to come out of that place.

Agree 100% @compubit...... going by memory I believe that has to be dancing footage shot from WTGS Savannah for their "This is the Place" version of This is Home. Good to see them pony up for NPG graphics and to see a different logo move for once.

Looks as if Channel 31 in Huntsville has picked up "This is Home"... No idea if they will pick up the news package. And another version of the spot with different jingle:

I tried to figure out who they were based on those first 4 or 5 clips.... no telling! They must have a good connection or know someone who does.

A handful of new videos on the Youtube channel of "News Stations Themes" features clean Enforcer NG4 full and rhythmic main cuts, along with some WTVR and Hearst stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kx_ePYvl_M

Here is a WFLA promo touting their Instagram account. The promo uses the male version of "This is the Place" and has custom Canvas logo modifications.

I've been through that site a good bit and unfortunately there has never been any KPRC Custom Package featured. It'd be cool to hear more of it. a couple of Toby Arnold related things... the header of their site now says royalty free stock music, their collections used to be licensed or bartered only. Also, I find this odd..there's a cut under their Lifestyles I library titled: "East to West" that is used in Stephen Arnold's Global Village, minus the 3 note news package melody. Not sure how that transpired unless SAM bought a cue from the same writer.

Ever since WFAA launched with the new look and music, I've wondered why the intro has an additional signature. I found a clean portion of it linked below as an example. https://www.dropbox.com/s/pr4clk2wkr1v7qz/gari_thisishome_alt.mp3?dl=0 Was the additional 6 notes before the TIH signature a custom commission primarily meant for former "Spirit" of Texas stations??? I realize it's not the same melody, but you can sing or say "The Spirit of Texas" over it..... or perhaps, just a happy coincidence that's much ado about nothin'....

Found this, The Brand Gallery is the creator of at least one of the new Sinclair packages and here is their Vimeo demo clip. http://vimeo.com/96923173 - - not sure if that's been posted before. Agree over parts of the package looking like a knockoff of some of the Gannett stuff. I do like the both the new Sinclair look and the Gannett packages are brighter and not the dark, typical mid 2000's looking packages that overstayed their welcome and unfortunately continue to grace many markets.

Found some information from Wally Wawro, who was a part of WFAA Creative Services when "The Spirit of Texas" launched. See the link for the full responses that he provided over the campaign. An excerpt where he discusses how the Mason Dixon version came about. I mentioned that Jim Kirk composed an original song for WFAA, "The Spirit of Texas" as part of the sessions in 1984. We didn't do anything with it initially. Somehow or another an east-Texas country band, "Mason Dixon" had heard about the song and started performing it. We weren't happy with Jim's scratch vocal and didn't want it to sound like a jingle (anyone remember Jim's "Voice of Freedom?"). When we heard what they were doing with the song we took a chance and got them into the studio to sing the vocals against Jim's instrumental track. We were pretty happy with it, shot a music video and with the help of one of the country FM's in the market released the song on a 45 (a round 7" vinyl disc with a big hole in the center that somehow or another was able to reproduce music with reasonable quality-for you youngsters). It was sold through a grocery store chain and the money went to charity. I think it sold about 3 thousand copies or so. The song became a hit with elementary school music teachers and we eventually shot several promos with kids singing etc. While the production on the song reflects the 1980s, I think the song itself holds up fairly well today. Enough of me, here's the tune! And here is an excerpt from another reply regarding the overall campaign: Nice to see some interest in "SofT" as we called it at WFAA. I was (and still am) a member of the Creative Services department at WFAA and was involved in the development and execution of Spirit of Texas in 1984. At the time "promotion" as it was called was led by Lee Armstrong, a wonderful manager (who later went on to great success with the Cox TV station group) who asked a simple question, "What is WFAA? Designing and developing the campaign was the answer. Spirit of Texas has been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated through the years. It primarily is used in our community relations activities these days. A form of the musical logo is still in use. I'm told the term still tests very positively. I don't remember all the details but the first part of the package (image song and the 30 second "mood" pieces (written and lyriced for 3 30 second TV promos) were written and recorded in March of 1984 and introduced in April of that year. The newscast music was recorded in July-August of 1984 and introduced that September. Jim Kirk was responsible for the package though it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't some help from Tom Merriman and Bob Piper with the arrangements, especially since the package had a full contemporary (for 84) orchestral sound, let's face it no one did orchestra better than Tom. I was responsible for it on the WFAA side of things. The package was added to in bits and pieces over the next 6 years. I remember doing at least 2 more image songs related to Spirit. We went in a different direction with some "consultant driven" news package in 1992 or so (that sucked beyond belief) then had a relationship with Steven Arnold and now 615. But as I said the logo still hangs in there. http://jinglemad.com/index.php?p=/discussion/8816/the-spirit-of-texas-1985-/p1

See my post below regarding how the Mason Dixon version of the spirit came about. Sorry about the double postings!

Yes and definitely WWL as well. Gotta give them a couple of kudos for occasionally airing their Arnold "Spirit of Louisiana" spots. I've seen them, a handful of times, even up until this spring with Mardi Gras. Guessing those are now out with the recent TIH changes. After doing some thinking on this, it could very well be that the Creative Services Directors at some of the Texas station and WWL in Louisiana may not understand the legacy and market power that the "Spirit" holds. I know a lot of long-timers in the creative services world have either been downsized or swapped around in recent years, but if they are longtimers or know about the station's branding history (and they should) and did NOT push and fight with their GM and then their GM push with corporate to budget for modifications then they shouldn't be in the position. That somewhat adds on to my previous thought that if WMAZ can have at least one of their campaigns from the Gari boys customized then WWL and the Texas heritage stations have no excuse. Such a waste of a powerful, emotional brand and sonic logo that is and "was" "The Spirit of..."

It still baffles me if WMAZ in Macon is able to have customized "straight from the heart" lyrics on at least ONE of the Gari TIH songs, then I don't see why the Texas stations could not have "The Spirit of Texas" logo added into both the lyrics of the songs and a custom remix of the news themes. Takes next to nothing for Gari to add the logo as the front melody with TIH as the tag logo on the opens, bumps and such. I'd rather it be 615, TM or Arnold too -- but since it HAS to be Gari, makes no sense that WMAZ can get custom lyrics and the Texas powerhouses with such a strong legacy brand can't budget up for a Gari logo/lyric remix.

the one way I could see that possibly working is if they used the the lightest mix of the bumper available without any drums. Even then probably would still sound like crap. Surefire way to make it work would be to pre-produce that entire pre-open piece and actually line up the logo with the beats in the bumper bed. Doubt too many stations would take the extra minute or two needed to get that right. Afterall, too many still have the mentality of sound isn't as important as the video. Now in digital and HD, it's all equally important and mistakes are more pronounced. You could hide a lot in the analog days.

Great to hear that it doesn't sound wobbly and all vhs'ish on-air....as much as I don't mind that cut of music, just ONE thing about it makes me want to hate it... the KICK drum! I believe there are versions of that track without it, but the WHAS youtube linked above uses the cut with it. The kick drum sounds like it's not in time with anything else with the rhythm of the music. Maybe I'm the only one who notices that wacky off-timed drum lol. Anyone else? Maybe my criticism isn't fair or warranted, I had earbuds in. A few weeks ago when I first noticed it with another Gannett station, I assumed maybe it was a click track that the Gari folks accidentally left on in their Pro-Tools/MOTU music software when mixing. EDIT: I think I may have figured it out... it sounds like the kick drum clashes with the timing of the 3-note "this is home" melodies but appears to be in time with the underlying rhythm.. The melody on top makes it makes it seem like the timing is off at moments.

Right right. If I'm thinking of the same 'more authoritative' cuts that you are, would that be the variation similar to what KUSA uses as their 10PM pre-tease & open or it is similiar to what Gari uses as the KUSA UP NEXT at 6 promo on his website demo?

Watched it in the market on Charter in HD. IMO graphics looked much better than I expected on WWL. Technically only a few small gaffes. The color coded background of the first story I believe switched from News-Blue to Breaking-Red. Musically, I assumed they would use what I'd term the "heroic / triumphant" cut for the opening. Levels seemed to be low and they rushed too quickly into the breaking news stinger. I'm sure they will smooth out wrinkles like that. I I hope they will work on the music levels. All of it seemed too low on the launch newscast. The weather intro music is almost non-existent, which is in quite a contrast to the Belo/615 AWYT music. There wasn't much of a pronounced logo that I could hear going into weather. Stock market return bump was 10 to 15 seconds, don't recall hearing much of any logo, if any on that. They did use the glitchy-sounding techno cut going into the first break which I thought was surprising. To me, the set now seems too busy with such minimal graphics. There were no 'This is Home' promos during the noon cast. I look forward, as clcLA8383 mentioned, to seeing how smoothly the shows go tonight.

Found the answer to the jingle composer of "Best of the Class" advertising jingle. His name is Arthur Fields (ARTIE FIELDS PRODUCTIONS) and the story looks to be an interesting one. It was written and composed in 1982 for WXYZ, and relicensed for stations across the country. Not sure if there were ever any "customized versions mentioning schools, towns or station call letters" Years later, legal issues came up. There were are questions about potential copyright infringement when WXYZ updated the jingle in the 90's and had changed the titling "brightest and best" that Fields was not a part of. Although exclusively created for WXYZ, Fields said the contract gave him the right to recreate and relicense the jingle for other clients outside of the exclusive home base of Detroit and accused XYZ of copyright infringement over their updating of the jingle without his permission. See link http://openjurist.org/97/f3d/1451/artie-fields-productions-inc-v-channel-seven-of-detroit-inc-wxyz-tv

Good question.... I'm looking around through some searches to see if I can help you uncover that. Meantime, found a super long version of the original jingle sing here: And here are some different vocal styles/updated musical versions of the song that I've never heard, as featured on KLAX's website. http://klax-tv.com/best-of-the-class-2014/

Here's a quick weekend discovery. Phil Kelly was the composer asked by Stephen Arnold to create what was the first theme suite of the Signature package. Check out his Soundcloud where the early news theme #1 is featured. It's the full 5 section piece (2m 30secs) with edit points on the 30's where many of the cutdowns where made. No idea if he was involved in the faster and slightly different variation that was the original late news theme suite. In the description Phil describes it as a TV news promo featuring sequenced material combined w/ live horns and strings. Phil Kelly Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/graypencil/01-tv-news-music-composed-for

I found it. Totally had forgotten about this additional Gari variation of his ER sound-alike themes. http://www.newsmusicnow.com/player.php?id=2/enforcer/series1weather.mp3&t=The%20Enforcer%20-%20Weather

I went back and channeled my inner Gari and listened to the full in-the-clear theme on the Southern Media site. The overall sound is different than most of Gari's late 90's sound, I do hear some of Gari and (Danny Pelfrey/ Rick Rhodes who have co-wrote tons of scores with Gari) especially towards the end of the track. Besides the double bass drum hit at :58 which is a Gari staple, I'm reminded of the Pelfrey/Rhodes signature sound that is featured on "Rescue Squad" from Killertracks. http://www.killertracks.com/#/browse/browsed-results.aspx?selectedLabelId=8&PageNo=9&SelectedCDId=633 I would guess that it was a Gari / Pelfrey / Rhodes creation obviously under the Gari marketing/sales banner. HMMMM, come to think of it, I'm also reminded of the Good News "Storm Center" theme towards the ending as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWCXC5PX_8 Ahhh, I "thought" there was another variation of Gari's ER-esque theme that sounded even closer to the real thing. Thanks for jogging my brain. I'll check and see if NewsMusicNow has it once he gets his site back up. Down at the moment. LOL I can hear it... he just needed to extend that closing note and hold it for an additional 10 to 15 seconds like the soap theme did.

Very true, I did not factor in Hugo and the fact that so much is left unknown in that market. Yeah, I checked out their NMSA entry and it looks like besides MCTYW that they primarily stuck with Gari and Arnold. Guess it's not too far-fetched to think that it may be SAM since they used him from 1997-2008 with confirmed packs.