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TEGNA's New Graphics?


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I'm sure 15 years ago, many people would have said "rectangular desks and sharp cornered news sets? that kind of design has no place in a serious newscast" "Electric guitar-heavy rythms? No place in a serious newscast". Don't be surprised if this kind of "European" music starts catching on and being developed for more stations/station groups.

 

Call me insane, but the more I've listened to the music the more I have fallen in love with it - even with the weird "scat" vocals. Kudos to Tegna for stepping outside the box and redefining what is used as a theme.

Honestly, I remember way back in 1999, seeing the BBC News look as a teenager, and thinking quite clearly that they were mad. Completely, truly mad. I mean, BBC meant austerity, restraint to me. Red and cream set design and drum-n-bass news music were NOT restrained. I eventually came to regard it as brilliant.

 

I think Tegna made the right call in going outside the box for this news music, like I said. I don't think it's trash. I just don't think it works *for me*. Maybe it'll grow on me. The malfunctioning fax music did.

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I think Tegna made the right call in going outside the box for this news music, like I said. I don't think it's trash. I just don't think it works *for me*. Maybe it'll grow on me. The malfunctioning fax music did.

 

I'm beginning to enjoy it. As someone who just loves the orchestral strength of the Telediario music Multimedios has after years and years of "Overture" (it needs to be adapted for an American station) and the uncreative mess that is "Aerial", it adds a human touch that seems to be missing from news music. And the day electric guitar is banned from news music will be a happy day.

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The music's growing on me too. You can only do so many 3 or 4 note packages without it getting really boring, really fast.

 

My concern is some of the juxtaposition of it against hard news stories (IE violent crime teases) where it definitely does not work. It's probably as simple as a non-vocal version of the PM/Serious theme I hear in a lot of the teases, but that needs to be buttoned up sooner vs. later.

 

This really should have been picked up by WTSP/KXTV as part of the experimental format first, and I'm actually excited to see how this lands on both their stations--and whether they keep the non-Troika GFX with it. That seems like it would be a perfect fit--to a point where my big fear is the KXTV/WTSP format w/ Troika's look eventually be rolled out everywhere, including the legacy stations.

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Going through the samples that the NMSA compiled, I think KUSA's open is best because it so far appears to be one of the few that doesn't have the vocal parts in it. The vocal elements feel really out of place for the open, but are otherwise fine for most of the rest of it.

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The music's growing on me too. You can only do so many 3 or 4 note packages without it getting really boring, really fast.

 

My concern is some of the juxtaposition of it against hard news stories (IE violent crime teases) where it definitely does not work. It's probably as simple as a non-vocal version of the PM/Serious theme I hear in a lot of the teases, but that needs to be buttoned up sooner vs. later.

 

This really should have been picked up by WTSP/KXTV as part of the experimental format first, and I'm actually excited to see how this lands on both their stations--and whether they keep the non-Troika GFX with it. That seems like it would be a perfect fit--to a point where my big fear is the KXTV/WTSP format w/ Troika's look eventually be rolled out everywhere, including the legacy stations.

 

The more I see the graphics, I can tell this graphic was probably inspired by the KXTV/ABC10 look: the simple L3, and the TEGNA affinity for things in boxes (reference the TEGNA closing tag)...

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The more I see the graphics, I can tell this graphic was probably inspired by the KXTV/ABC10 look.

 

That, and TEGNA has an affinity for things in boxes (reference: their closing tag).

This baffles me. These graphics were clearly inspired by what they were doing at KXTV/WTSP. So why not pilot these graphics there? Or implement those graphics on the other stations? Something just doesn't fit right.

 

I'm looking at samples of the music and the new graphics as more examples pop in to try and formulate some updated thoughts on them.

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I did a focus group test with a friend last night.

 

She thought the gfx and music didn't really mesh well and that the music was fine enough, but she wouldn't go out of her way to watch/listen to it. That's in comparison to the KUSA 1995 theme, which, though she admitted was a "standard news theme", she liked (and compared to a "peppy Star Trek theme"). And both paled in comparison to the BBC News music, which she was really impressed by, especially after seeing it in action.

 

I'm still a bit ambivalent. It's not bad per se but that open cut rubs me the wrong way. And it's not the "ooh"s. The track has that droning, repetitive feel. I don't know why that doesn't really work for me when some of my favorite news bumpers are simple and kind of repetitive (MCTYW and Arnold's NewsEdge). Maybe it's the lack of percussion in this one? Then again, BBC News has no percussion in that bumper and yet I like that... I dunno, I really dunno. A lot of the other cuts are really, really good, it's just that main cut.

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After hearing a full newscast's worth of the new music, I've decided that it's better than I thought it was at first. KVUE seems to have picked a bunch of cuts that almost sound like they're from a package with a traditional signature, but it's also a bit like hearing the entire newscast done with that one cut that Stephen Arnold seems to put in a lot of his packages (particularly the ones for Texas stations) that's a little bit slower and heavy on the acoustic guitar and feels like it was specifically designed to be played as a close over a lingering shot of the sunrise.

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