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Old Atlanta TV and Radio News Themes

B

BarryATL

Star Participant
I have been watching a bunch of Youtube vids of old TV intros. The link below is Atlanta stations 1976-77. The theme from Channel 11 Pro News is from a clip from commercially released music. Does anybody remember what it is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0VaqAc36gs

By the way, the "new" 11 Alive theme was very exciting at the time. It was so different. I was 14 and would turn in to 11 Alive news just to hear the new theme music each night.

Also, growing up my family listened to the Wizzbee Merry Go-Round (that is how I remember it in my head) while getting ready for work/school. Remember when we all had radios in the kitchen? Are there any air checks or at least some of the jingles out there on the net? Since Wizzbee can be spelled so many ways, I don't know exactly what to search for.

Yes, I am having a trip down memory lane. :cool:
 
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I found the music... although I am probably one of the very few that is interested in anything that was Channel 11 Pro News.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpjN1JYWjMs

At 1:10 mark.

Still interested in finding something from the WSB (AM 750) Merry-go-round morning show. I am guessing that had to be the mid-70s or so.
 
I can't find it quickly but somewhere out on the Interwebs there is a WCBS sounder package (including emergency/this is not a test recordings!) that includes the regular sounders and themes that WGST also used from the time they flipped to all-news in the mid-70s into the early-mid 1990s.
 
jabba17 said:
I can't find it quickly but somewhere out on the Interwebs there is a WCBS sounder package (including emergency/this is not a test recordings!) that includes the regular sounders and themes that WGST also used from the time they flipped to all-news in the mid-70s into the early-mid 1990s.
Click to expand...

For about how many years was WSGT All News?
 
RoddyFreeman said:
For about how many years was WSGT All News?
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WGST flipped to all news in 1977, shortly after Meredith bought the station from Georgia Tech. According to Wikpedia, WGST went news-talk in the early 80s.
 
jabba17 said:
WGST flipped to all news in 1977, shortly after Meredith bought the station from Georgia Tech. According to Wikpedia, WGST went news-talk in the early 80s.
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Eric Seidel, who was Station Manager/PD in the "glory days" (1987-1996), was at WGST twice. He told me he was there the first time when the change to All News happened. He said Meredith management called him on the phone and told him that they were flipping the station to All News. They asked, "How long do you need to make the change?" Eric replied, "About a month." They said, "You have a week."
 
Found it. Here is the WCBS sounder package that WGST used: http://donswaim.com/wcbs-alerts-ebs-net-alerts.mp3

The news sounder starts at about 2:35 after the emergency messages. The financial news sounder starts at about 2:50. The "breaking news" sounder starts at about 3:00.

Here is the WGST 9/11 broadcast which has the "breaking news" sounder in use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D28zjK-Is1I

The financial news sounder didn't make it to the 1990s; I'm not sure when they quit using it after the 1970s. The regular news sounder made it a few years into the 1990s, probably up until Planet Radio. I think the breaking news sounder is still used today as needed.
 
jabba17 said:
The "breaking news" sounder starts at about 3:00.
Click to expand...

That is incredibly grating. One thing to use it as a sounder for 3 seconds, but to listen to it on loop like this makes me want to jump out a third floor window.
 
BarryATL said:
I have been watching a bunch of Youtube vids of old TV intros. The link below is Atlanta stations 1976-77. The theme from Channel 11 Pro News is from a clip from commercially released music. Does anybody remember what it is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0VaqAc36gs
Click to expand...

The theme on the video is from a package called Move Closer to Your World (MCTYW) by Al Ham. It made its debut at WNAC in Boston, and was later used for Action News on WPIX (also branded as 11 Alive at the time), and continues to serve as the theme for Action News on WPVI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGCWA6vQjqE
 
Sorry, I should clarify my foregoing reply with the emendation that the first theme on the video is from MCTYW. The second (TV 5), incidentally, is from the "Tar Sequence" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke.
 
jabba17 said:
Found it. Here is the WCBS sounder package that WGST used: http://donswaim.com/wcbs-alerts-ebs-net-alerts.mp3

The news sounder starts at about 2:35 after the emergency messages. The financial news sounder starts at about 2:50. The "breaking news" sounder starts at about 3:00.

Here is the WGST 9/11 broadcast which has the "breaking news" sounder in use. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D28zjK-Is1I

The financial news sounder didn't make it to the 1990s; I'm not sure when they quit using it after the 1970s. The regular news sounder made it a few years into the 1990s, probably up until Planet Radio. I think the breaking news sounder is still used today as needed.
Click to expand...

The "Sixty at six" news hour included the money/financial news sounder up until right before Planet Radio, when the station dropped WCBS in favor of a theme sounder supposedly banged out by somebody in-house, which sounded like it cost all of five cents they found stuck under a wobbly table leg.

Those were the end of the days of GST whopping WSB's butt in terms of radio news. A lot of folks nowadays probably cannot imagine that.
 
Speaking of Planet Radio, wasn't that about 20 years ago now?

wgst.gif
 
Does anyone know the story of the Planet Radio name? I remember hearing that the consultants wanted "Naked Radio" but the company nixed the idea. I'd love to hear details.
 
AMRocks said:
Does anyone know the story of the Planet Radio name? I remember hearing that the consultants wanted "Naked Radio" but the company nixed the idea. I'd love to hear details.
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Local adman Joey Reiman thought up the Planet Radio name. Not sure how he decided on it.
 
AMRocks said:
Does anyone know the story of the Planet Radio name? I remember hearing that the consultants wanted "Naked Radio" but the company nixed the idea. I'd love to hear details.
Click to expand...

Better than "Nekkid Radio"...
 
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