To celebrate the start of a new era, ABC News sent reporters to notable places in every time zone to cover New Years celebrations. It was a huge operation, with Peter Jennings anchoring for 25 straight hours, and was critically acclaimed. They did not attempt to do this again on New Year’s Eve in 2000, but created a smaller and more budget-friendly version of this program on New Year’s Eve 2002. This theme was used for that program, as well as for many other important events in the year 2000, such as the elections.

This theme was originally not composed for ABC-TV but for Disney World in Orlando Florida. The Epcot attraction uses it for their presentation called “IllumiNations 2000: Reflections of Earth”. Of course Epcot and ABC-TV are owned by the same company, Walt Disney, which often share resources. This theme is composed by Gavin Greenaway, who won an Emmy for it.