In 1965, Al Primo, the new News Director at KYW-TV in Philadelphia created the "Eyewitness News" format. The reporter would be the "eyewitness" to the anchor in the studio and the viewer at home.
He used the cue "007" from the 1963 film From Russia with Love as the theme. The format quickly became a hit in Philadelphia and allowed KYW to surge past longtime leader WCAU-TV for first place, a position it kept on and off until the late 1970s. Rival WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) adopted the Action News format to compete with it.
In 1968, Primo moved to WABC-TV in New York City and took the Eyewitness News concept there with him, choosing music from the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke--the "Tar Sequence" cue (composed by Lalo Schifrin)--as the theme. However, he added a new twist at WABC--chatter among the anchors, which came to be known as "happy talk". WABC has kept the name and and format since then, and has been the highest-rated station in New York for much of that time.
The format, as tweaked by WABC, was copied by many other stations in the United States, with most other stations owned and operated by ABC using the Cool Hand Luke theme. Ironically, WPVI, which developed the Action News format, is now an ABC owned-and-operated station.
Stations that use or have used the Eyewitness News format or name
Eyewitness News format originally introduced at this station. Dropped name from 1991 to use different names for different dayparts; rebranded as "News 3" in 1994 and back to the title in 1998.
In addition, the title had been used in the past in Canada on Edmonton's CFRN (a CTV affiliate), as well as the local newscasts on Australia's Network Ten until the mid-1990s. Spanish-language Telemundo's owned stations also have their own version of Eyewitness News, called Noticias de Primera Plana (Headline News).
Eyewitness News: The News Music Package
Eyewitness News is also the name of a syndicated news music package, composed by Frank Gari of Gari Communications.
Since 1968, WABC and ABC's other large market owned-and-operated stations, eg. WLS-TV in Chicago, KABC-TV in Los Angeles and KGO-TV in San Francisco, had used the "Cool Hand Luke" theme on their newscasts. In mid-1980s, they started using News Series 2000, an updated version of the original Schifrin theme, composed by Frank Gari, that had been originally commissioned by WLS-TV in Chicago.
However, in 1993, Schifrin raised his royalties for using "Cool Hand Luke" and its variations to a level that effectively priced the theme out of the local news market. As a result, Gari was commissioned by WABC to compose a new music package called "Eyewitness News". This new package, based slightly on Cool Hand Luke, has been updated several times. WABC currently uses the "Series 4" version, which was specifically updated for the station in 1999.
Besides being used in America, the Eyewitness News music package has also been picked up for use overseas. Hong Kong Cable News has been using it for its morning newscast, and POP-TV in Slovenia has been using it for its main newscasts.
A station using the Eyewitness News music package might not necessarily use the Eyewitness News title for its newscasts, and vice versa. For example, WXYZ in Detroit uses the music package, but calls its newscasts "Channel 7 Action News".
External links
TV Newscast Titles - listings of other stations that have used the Eyewitness News name
CBS3 Eyewitness News Team - unofficial site documenting the development of Eyewitness News at KYW-TV
SouthernMedia's NMSA - listing of American stations that have used Eyewitness News: the news music package
