Like in the USA, The Mission continues to be a popular theme in Australia. This is the latest arrangement, provided to you as a bonus. It’s off the air and sounds kind of rough–the heavy sound effects contributing to that.

This is the very subtilely updated Part IV of The Mission, used for Meet the Press. As the longest running program on television, Meet the Press often digs into its huge archives in a segment called “Meet the Press Minute”. Usually its a historical clip related to the events of the present day.

In 2004 after the general election, veteran anchor Tom Brokaw retired from NBC News. The transition had been announced long in advance and so successor Brian Williams was carefully introduced to the viewers. As part of the transition Nightly News updated its classic theme, The Mission, along with the graphics and set. No big changes–all debuting in the days before Brokaw left. The updated version of The Mission was recorded in October of 2004 in Culver City, CA and featured a 100-piece orchestra conducted by composer John Williams. NBC News commissioned an update to the classic theme because they wanted a slightly crisper and cleaner sound. Furthermore, to better preserve the music, the new theme was recorded digitally. The new Mission package also includes three unused themes for future use. The theme you are listening to is the full length main theme of The Mission, used as a close on Nightly News.

The opening sequence to Nightly News was also revamped in 2004, at first returning to what NBC considered the roots of The Mission with a softer headline bed, but quickly abandoning it in favor of the old percussion-heavy cue. In 2007 the headline bed dropped the first three opening notes.

Seven Nightly News in Australia uses this remixed version of John Williams’ The Mission…The Mission on XTC! They previously used the original, but have switched over to a sort of club mix of the original. Coincidentally this is not the only similarity between Australian TV news and American TV news. The National Nine News uses a theme from the famous movie Cool Hand Luke, the same theme used most notably by owned and operated ABC stations as their news theme. The Ten Evening News, for a while, used opening graphics that were more than just inspired by the late 80s open for the CBS Evening News. And over at Channel 9 they have, since 1978, their own version of 60 Minutes.

This is the first orchestral theme for the CBS Evening News! Before this time, CBS News had a policy, imposed by CBS TV President Frank Stanton that no music could be used. This policy dated back to the old days of TV News when many newscasts consisted of syndicated pictures with cheap production music. To prove CBS supplied its own footage, they decided not to add any music. Besides, their music library at the time consisted of music used for those old radio soaps. It was inappropriate for news. For a few years, they had a ticker sound as open/bumper/close, but from 1984 to 1987 they had no music in the open and the close! After a few years of seeing their ratings decline, while John Williams’ The Mission was popular with the viewing public at NBC, the executives at CBS decided to finally reverse their policy and commissioned John Trivers, Elizabeth Myers, and Alan James Pasqua to compose the theme. You can listen to the open, the headline cue and the close.

This is another cut from The Mission by John Williams. NBC News at Sunrise debuted in 1983 with anchor Connie Chung. Other anchors included Deborah Norville and Ann Curry. The program and the theme music left the airwaves in 1999.

This theme was originally intended for special reports and only later was it adopted by Meet The Press as its main theme. The theme is called the “Pulse of Events”. Meet the Press, having begun its radio run in 1945 and making its debut on television two years later, is the longest running show in the history of television. The original format consisted of a panel of journalists asking the guest questions, much like a press conference. When Tim Russert started his run as moderator, the format was changed. The panel was replaced with a single moderator who asked all the questions. To this day, with David Gregory as moderator, that is still the format used.

Today debuted on January 14th 1952 and was first hosted by Dave Garroway and featured a chimpanzee, called J. Fred Muggs, as a sidekick. Like the current studio, the first set was streetside with people looking in. The first show had a relaxed, easy going style that made it popular with viewers. This open was used from 1985.

This is the third part of the four-part The Mission package and was used as a close to NBC’s Today Show in the 80s. This theme is more commonly known as “Scherzo for Today”. Although the theme starts out very different than Part I, keep listening to hear some samples that have been worked into this part. Since The Mission premiered in 1985 it has been used less and less. This theme was dropped altogether in 1990. A shorter version of this theme was used as the music used for the Tomorrow on Today promos.

The program may be forgettable, but the theme certainly is not. This is Part II of The Mission; the theme was originally titled as the “Fugue For Changing Times” by John Williams. Before Hours was a 15-minute business news program. It was hosted by Bob Jamieson and the weather reports were provided by Joe Witte.

In 1985 NBC News (like ABC News did earlier) commissioned a full orchestral news theme package. It is composed by the famous and popular movie-score composer John Williams, who’s credits include Star Wars, Jaws and Jurrasic Park. The package is called The Mission and consists of four parts (which are the themes to other NBC News programs). The package includes everything from promo besd to bumpers, however these days, most cuts have been retired. This theme was used as the close for NBC Nightly News and it called The Mission, part I.

A more hard hitting cut of The Mission was chosen as the opening for NBC Nightly News. It has been used as the open since 1985.