Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

615 Music updates site with new news music for WSFL-TV and KTLA-TV

615 Music has updated its site with some recent work including a package created for WSFL-TV and KTLA-TV.

The package for WSFL-TV, which debuted a few weeks ago, features an upbeat pace and light acoustics. The package is used for WSFL-TV’s morning show “The Morning Show” and is named “First Report.” The package works well for a morning show setting and lacks the usual full orchestral, sweeping, urgent tempos found in 615’s regular news music.

KTLA-TV’s package, named “Connect,” features a unique sonic brand that helps create a multi-note theme for the entire package. The package contains 11 main themes and over 565 mix outs and cuts. This package is more well rounded and features various cues you would expect from a full news music package with a more urgent pace and tone.

It’s interesting to note that both packages have a disclaimer in the descriptions that “This package is not available for licensing.” Is 615 Music doing more custom work that is on an exclusive basis or did these clients just want a different license?

Stephen Arnold Music sonic brands ‘Inside Africa’ for CNN

Stephen Arnold Music recently completed this new package for CNN International’s “Inside Africa” program.

Network News Music debuts new site with upgraded features

Network News Music, the ultimate resource for well network news music, has debuted a new site with many new updated files and features.

The new site has higher quality audio clips, new theme additions and now you can rate each theme.

Visit the new site today and have a listen.

Breaking: Broadcast ownership groups sue music rights licenser SESAC

Today a class-action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of New York claiming broadcasters are being overcharged for music “as a result of anticompetitive practices by SESAC.” Filling the suit are Meredith, E.W. Scripps, Hoak Media and other broadcasters from around the country.

“SESAC’s strategy has been to sign up composers of music in popular television programs, guarantee them significantly higher incomes than they had received elsewhere, and then raise its prices without regard for the amount of music a station uses, employing threats of copyright infringement lawsuits as a bargaining tactic,” said the Television Music License Committee, a nonprofit that negotiates music rights for TV stations, in a release about the lawsuit.

“The complaint alleges that essentially all television stations are compelled to pay SESAC the price it demands for a license because they cannot control what music is used in most of the programs and commercials they broadcast, and they cannot remove the music,” the TV Music Licensing Committee said. “Thus, to avoid broadcasting music without a license–a violation of copyright law–they have no choice but to accept SESAC’s licensing terms.”

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Stephen Arnold Music composes theme for ‘Amanpour’

Stephen Arnold Music composed the new theme for Amanpour, the new weekly issues show on CNN. The theme features a dramatic sound that builds in the background with a great musical signature.

SAM has been the recent composer of choice for CNN, also composing the updated Inside the Middle East theme.

Stephen Arnold Music strikes a similar chord with iNews

Stephen Arnold has unveiled their latest news music package, iNews. The package first debuted on KIAH-TV, the CW affiliate in Houston.

A direct expression of the soundtrack that accompanies your viewers lives, this unique package takes current music trends and fuses them with your newscast, as relevant to today as the stories in your headlines.

iNews is built around an unyielding sonic brand that speaks the timeless language of news but in todays vernacular. It uses rhythms that you hear in your car speakers as you drive to work and grooves you hear in your headphones when you listen to your playlists.

iNews is what your audience is listening to - on air, online, on demand.

Continue reading for our take and some of Stephen Arnold’s other recent work.
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615 Music composes custom package for WSB-TV

615 Music has updated their site with a new packaged called “Coverage.” It appears the package is composed for WSB-TV, the Atlanta ABC affiliate. We cannot confirm if this package has debuted on WSB-TV as of yet, but currently the NMSA lists WSB-TV as still using News 2000 by Music Partners.

The package uses a rock and percussion base and features 16 themes and over 900 cuts. The package draws heavily on big percussion beats and then a rock theme with orchestral stabs emerge. With 16 themes, this package has many many variations and sounds different than recent 615 Music work.

What will the TV news creative industry look like after the recession?

As TV stations across the country shed jobs and slash dollars form budgets, one wonders what the TV news set design, graphics design and music industry will look like once the country emerges from recession.

One thing is for sure — things won’t be the same.

Before delving into this issue, you should know this post is more of a “thinking out loud” type column. Many of the questions and points I’ll make don’t have clear answers and the ideas and thoughts I propose could very well be totally off-base or spot on. I encourage you to share your thoughts via the commenting feature below.

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Stephen Arnold Music helps CBS introduce ‘A New Morning’

Stephen Arnold Music recently completed this new image campaign for CBS News’s The Early Show.

The campaign was composed by Stephen Arnold and Greg Barnhill. The song features an upbeat tempo and beat along with talent intros and shots from around the studio. It’s interesting one of the lyrics says “It’s a new morning for America’s Family…” America’s Family had previously been the Today Show ‘family.’

This promo feels like some of Today’s former and current promos… way back to the “America’s First Family” era.

Congrats to Stephen Arnold Music

Earlier we congratulated some Promax BDA winners for design awards, but today we learned Stephen Arnold Music also won a Promax BDA Silver Award for their Indie Band News Music Package. Stephen Arnold Music was also recognized for some of their other custom work.

Weather Channel tunes out ‘elevator music’

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting the Weather Channel has opted to stop playing smooth jazz-type music during local forecast segments.

The music, which was apparently popular enough to warrant a CD release of a sampling of the tunes, will replaced with soft rock.

“I think we’ve been doing an injustice to our viewers playing, for the lack of a better word, elevator music on the segments for all these years,” Geoffrey Darby, the cable network’s new executive vice president of programming, told the AJC.

The Idolator blog, meanwhile, has list, complete with sample tracks, of the June 2009 lineup.

Darby also mentioned the new tunes won’t be thematically intrusive. So don’t expect the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” with the next tornado alert, says the AJC.

MSNBC debuts new music with new HD look

Along with its new HD look, msnbc has also rolled out new music. Unlike CNN, MSNBC has never had a memorable musical signature. MSNBC’s last dayside theme was developed in-house by a MSNBC staffer and a guitar. The theme worked well with its graphics package, but did not convey the urgency of the news and always had the same beat.

Today, MSNBC debuted an updated music brand with the new theme heard above. At times the music sounds almost like a piece of Videohelper production music, and it very well could be since MSNBC uses much of the VH library during its programming, but at times it also sounds like a custom piece developed specifically for them. We hope to find official word on who composed it along with an extended sample.

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