In 1988 CBS News started a new kind of news magazine: 48 Hours. The show drew its name, inspiration and original format from a CBS News documentary that was titled 48 Hours on Crack Street. The documentary, which attracted high ratings, was about the drug crisis and how it affected neighborhoods. Like the original documentary, the show focussed on showing events that occurred within a timespan of 48 hours, hence the name. The format was phased out in the early 1990′s. The series was anchored by Dan Rather. This is the theme they used to open the show. After three years, new music was composed and this theme was used as secondary music.

This hip and slick news magazine was started in 1985 as the 60 Minutes for a younger generation. It was named after the address of the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. The show was fast paced and visually flashy but had essentially the same format as 60 Minutes. The program had no main anchor; the correspondents (like Meredith Vieira and Steve Kroft) would introduce their own stories. Despite its popularity and profitability, West 57th faced a lot of internal criticism. Dan Rather was afraid it took away resources from the CBS Evening News and Don Hewitt saw it as a younger rival to 60 Minutes. The program was cancelled in 1989.

CBS News Nightwatch was an overnight newscast. It debuted in October of 1982 and was replaced with Up to the Minute in 1992. For most of its existence, Charlie Rose anchored the program. During his tenure, the program developed from being mostly a straightforward newscast to essentially a two-hour interview show. This theme was composed by Walt Levinsky, who also did other themes for CBS at the time such as the CBS Evening News, NFL Football and College Basketball coverage. It was replaced in 1988 by a theme from Edd Kalehoff.

Since the 1960′s the title ‘CBS Morning News’ has been used for various programs on the CBS schedule. In the early 1980′s it was used for the predecessor of the show now called the Early Show. At the time the CBS Morning News was anchored by Bill Kurtis, who previously anchored a highly rated local newscast in Chicago, and Diane Sawyer. The program was well received and was able to – for a brief period – rise from its perennial third place to second, beating the Today Show. Kurtis and Sawyer also anchored the CBS Early Morning News together.

Because there was a regulation at CBS that music could not be used for the Evening News, they used a teletype-like sound for bumpers and long credit closes when needed. The open, however, contained no music or sound of any kind. Dan Rather would simply open the broadcast by declaring: “Good evening. This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting.” The bumper is composed by Walt Levinsky, who was once part of the Tonight Show Band during the early years of the Johnny Carson era.

In 1968 legendary broadcast pioneer (and executive producer until 2004), Don Hewitt, created a new kind of television program — the news magazine. It was supposed to do feature reporting that was informative and hard hitting. After a less than successful start the program caught on in the 1970′s and has been on top of the yearly Nielsens a total of five times! All the other networks were quick to enter this lucrative business and at times in TV’s history, it seemed there was practically nothing else on but these news magazines. In 1998, to cash in more on the success of this show, CBS created 60 Minutes II and, on their short-lived cable network, called Eye on People, they started airing 60 Minutes More. All but the original have since left the air. For this “theme”, you may need to turn up the volume a bit. Alright, it’s not a theme, just the sound of an Aristo stopwatch that 60 Minutes uses for its opens and bumpers.