In 1998 Primetime Live disappeared in name but stayed around in spirit, only to make a full comeback as Primetime Thursday in 2000. All of ABC’s news magazines in 1998 were merged into editions of 20/20 so that ABC had just one news magazine brand with multiple editions a week, like Dateline. So Primetime Live became 20/20 Thursday. While it worked for NBC — which at its peak aired four editions of Dateline a week — it did not work for ABC. In 2000 Primetime Live returned as Primetime Thursday. Diane Sawyer now anchored the program alongside Charles Gibson. Why did they not reinstate the name Primetime Live? Well, the program wasn’t live anymore. Both anchors had early morning duties at Good Morning America, which was preventing them from anchoring a live weekly news magazine at night. During this era of the broadcast, which lasted from 2000 to 2004, they used an update of the original Bill Conti Primetime Live theme, which was done by Edd Kalehoff. The orchestration was slightly updated and it is significantly shorter.
Sorry but I’ll stick with the original Bill Conti theme. (His is more complex)
I have something to say that I’ll compare Edd Kalehoff’s Primetime Thursday theme to the 1993 Columbia Pictures Television fanfare by Dave Grusin, the 1993 TriStar Television fanfare by Jay Asher, the 1994 Columbia TriStar Television fanfare by Steven Kaplan, the 1994 Warner Bros. Television fanfare and the original 1995 Buena Vista Television fanfare by Sam Winans.