This was the first orchestral theme for the CBS Evening News. Before this theme was adopted in 1987, 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 not appropriate for news. For a few years, they had a ticker sound as open/bumper/close, but from 1984 to 1987 they had no music at all in the open and the close! After a few years of seeing their ratings decline, while John Williams’ NBC News theme was popular with the viewing public, the executives at CBS decided to finally reverse their policy and commissioned John Trivers, Elizabeth Myers, and Alan James Pasqua to compose the theme. The music was recorded at the Fox sound stage and took 6 hours to perform.
This theme was dropped in 1991, but only temporarily as it later turned out. When Scott Pelley took over as anchor of the CBS Evening News in 2011, executives wanted “to reach back into the DNA of CBS News”. They are using the original recordings, though they have been remastered slightly.
Trivers/Myers Music – CBS Evening News close
In the late ’80s they used different openings, but here you can find the one they used quite often. The opening that they have been using since 2011 is a bit different. It’s actually a remixed version of the last part of the long credit close above.
Trivers/Myers Music – CBS Evening News open (2011 version)
Trivers/Myers Music – CBS Evening News open (1987 version)
Trivers/Myers Music – CBS Evening News headlines
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Are you going to put on the latest CBS Evening News theme (from August 2022) or is this an identical reincarnation of a previous theme?
This isn’t a identical reincarnation of this theme, though it was mostly reorchestrated by Antfood while trying to keep the 1987 signature with the 2021 mnemonic.
If memory serves me correct, the basic theme goes all the back for promos in the Cronkite era. Back then Andrew Duggan voiced promos with the phrase “American vision. World view. That is the promise of CBS News.”
Ldee – not quite; it was used in promos at this time but they were aired November 1987 onwards (with this theme being used for the broadcast soon after). Other tracks were ‘The people of CBS News’ which spanned 3 years worth of use with different names and faces.
The promo you refer to was the first place this sonic branding was used. There was a copy of it on the internet at one point.
I remember this in Cincinnati I used to hate this song as a kid but when they brought it back I loved it