And from the '80s:
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Those definitely scream the 1980s.
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A classic Jana Wendt/David Johnston news promo from ATV10 in MelbourneâŠ
âŠand an example from the original U.S. promo campaign it was based on (along with a follow-up promo):
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As the ongoing and chaotic reforms on Telewizja Polska are underway, including the full relaunch of its news department is well underway, history is repeating itself again: the ongoing situation harks back to 1989, when TVP was reformed (just like what is happening now) as the socialist Polish Peopleâs Republic was dissolved in favor of a temporary government which paved the way to the first democratic government under Lech Walesa.
The changes were far-ranging, involving even the PSBâs news service, and specially, its long-running Dziennik Telewizyjny (English: Television Journal), long regarded as a symbol of communist propaganda in the Socialist rule.
The new reforms and management replaced it with WiadomoĆci, designed as a symbol of the then-new democratic TVP (although some programmes like Panorama had tried to cautiously offer less âpropagandisticâ news whilst staying in the partyâs ideology). Unlike DTV, WiadomoĆci had professional newsreaders and newscasters as presenters, most of which were inherited from the final years of Dziennik. In fact, a former DTV anchor, Wojciech ReszczyĆski, was selected to present the first broadcast on 18 November of that year, with the W logo from graphic artist Andrzej PÄ gowski appearing for the first before uttering these words:
âGood evening, I hope that this program will gain your approbation in the upcoming days. The information contained in this program will be either good or bad, but always true and we count on help and cooperation.â
Thereafter, WiadomoĆci would TVPâs main newscast, surfing against increased competition from private and local broadcasters, and also increasingly taking accusations of bias toward the ruling government, accusations which would take a dramatic turn under the Beata Szydlo and Mateusz Morawiecki governments.
It also would feature a number of big brand identity changes, with the last one being unveiled in May 2019. That designed featured an aggressive new look and theme music designed by Polish SFX and motion design company Platige Image, with music from EDM producer and soundtrack composer Adam Skorupa. It also featured an in-house set design which mixed AR with immersive mixed reality.
The previous titles, launched in January 2015, featured a soundtrack from Radzimir DÄbski, with live instrumentation recorded by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. These titles were often compared in some other media forums as very similar to the ITV News at Ten titles from 2008.
As part of the reforms, a number of channels were closed in an attempt to work on major programming reforms to these networks. One of the most important was the closure of TVP Info, the broadcasterâs news channel. That channel launched in September 2007 replacing the first incarnation of TVP3, a channel oriented to regionally-focused content; this led to the channel airing regional opt-outs at certain times of the day (including entertainment programming). The channel launched at a shoestring budget, but as the PSBâs intended plan to compete with TVN24, with content including hourly newscasts from Warsaw, plus news and current affairs content produced from other cities, provinces and districts, all inherited from TVP3.
Budget boosts followed from 2008, when the channel got a bigger studio and a more complete schedule of shows, including proper long-form strands, all in response to the arrival of a third competitor, Polsat News; it also became the first TVP channel to produce its daily programming in 16:9 format (initially in a letterbox style) and became a testing ground for new technology. In 2013, the regional opt-outs were moved to a new digital channel, which would become the second incarnation of TVP3 (more on that later); as a result, a new schedule was installed with more opinion programming and current affairs shows, plus new sets and graphics. However, when the PiS government took full control of TVP, things began to shift dramatically, with many news hours being replaced with simulcasts of TVP1 and TVP2 content, plus extended editions of their news and informational programming.
TVP Infoâs original branding was designed by French studio Aart Design; the studio designed the original 2007 graphics and also developed new openers and visuals for the big 2008 relaunch. Music was composed by well-known French DJ and producer Jean-Michel Jarre, who supplied TVP Info with a package originally used for a short-lived French cable channel, Match TV.
Then in 2009, an in-house work was accompanied by original music from Polish composer and soundtrack producer MichaĆ Lorenc, which accompanied another schedule boost. Since 2010, all work had been done in-house by TVP graphic designers and artists, with music from one of its main in-house composers and producers Piotr Rubik.
Now to TVP3, which, as previously told, was the regional channel of the PSB. Regional programming had historically being aired as opt-outs on TVP1 and TVP2, but, with the increased competition from private broadcasters, many of these regional centers had launched part-time local channels by the mid-1990s. However, the shortage of time and lack of resources to produce additional programming, led to eleven of these centers to launch a common national block of shows, which would be supplied from TVP HQ in Warsaw, and will allow these regional centers to produce programming aimed at national audiences.
The block, initially aired during daytime and early evenings, launched on September 1994, and soon it would encompass most of the daily schedule of each regional channel. Often known as TVP Regionalna and TwĂłja Regionalna Telewizja, these brands would appear consistently in alternating ways during these blocks of national programming.
By 2000, reforms were made to adopt the TVP3 (Regionalna TrĂłjka) as the sole and common brand for the service, with a common branding; however, in 2002, a big reform was made to allow TVP3 to become a national regionally-focused channel, with a proper national newsroom (Kurier) and a line-up of current affairs shows produced from Warsaw and the regional centers. Documentaries, dubbed series and films, and childrenâs programming also composed the line-up, which remained focused on news and current affairs up until the arrival of TVP Info.
The service would be revived in 2013 thanks to the digital switchover, which also led to TVP1 and TVP2 dropping the regional opt-outs alongside TVP Info. The service, initially TVP Regionalna, was formatted under the national-local scheme previously used, still with a focus on news and current affairs, but increasingly targeted to regional and local issues.
In 2015, after rebranding back as TVP3, a decentralization plan was tested, involving a fully-local schedule which mixed regional news and current affairs, hourly newscasts, regional lifestyle shows and a mix of nationally-supplied programming which could be repeated up to 3 times a day, every day. The PiS takeover of TVP would led to the plans being dropped and a return to the previous hybrid model of national and local content.
Another channel whose broadcasts were suspended is TVP World. The English-language news channel initially launched in November 2018 as Poland In, coinciding with Polandâs Independence Centennial celebrations, and extended from Poland in English, a website which repurposed TVP news content in English. The channel initially aired for just 6 hours a day, and only aired in streaming worldwide (except in North America). Plans to launch it as a satellite channel were initially proposed and eventually postponed until 2021.
The plans were relaunched later that same year, as plans to relaunch the service as TVP World were made as part of the launch of more speciality channels from the group (TVP Nauka, TVP Dokument and TVP Kobieta), but also as part of a strategy from the PiS TVP management to counter Russian news outlets, specially in border territories with Poland (that led to the launch of TVP Wilno, a channel specially dedicated to the Polish minorities in Lithuania, plus the ongoing and continued support and financing of Belsat, a satellite service oriented to Belarus).
Initially planned for January 2022, the launch was advanced to November 18, due to then-ongoing Belarussian migrant crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The channel inherited the Poland In staff and technology; however, over time, the service would develop a more structured schedule mixing live news programming, pre-recorded repeats and back half-hours of current affairs, culture and lifestyle programming with a strong Polish (and pro-government indeed) focus.
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Christmas is just around the corner! Because of that occasion, hereâs a Xmas Day edition of Brazilian cultural/educational network TV Culturaâs main evening newscast in 1995, presented by Maria Lins.
Musician Helio Ziskind composed the programâs magnificent theme.
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First of all, Iâd like to thank Medianext.MX for another incredibly comprehensive post. ÂĄGracias!
A few years earlier, Jornal da Cultura used the main theme from Back to the Future:
A short cut from the theme was also used by what is now MRT in North Macedonia:
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These idents are simply lovely! 
Hereâs a KROâs fast-paced ID from later in the decade (1988), where dolly shots (âflying cameraâ) and a steadycam were used to film the sequence.
Plus, a longer version of the elegant theme (composed by Stephen Emmer) with the names of the people involved in the production.
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The final broadcast of the ITV News Channel took place on todayâs date 18 years ago. Hereâs the entire half hour; go to the 2:42 mark for an explanation of the channelâs failure:
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Veteran Spanish journalist Pedro Piqueras retired from television this Thursday (21 December). He made his TV debut in 1988 at state-owned TVE, but also fronted news programs for Antena 3 and Telecinco. To celebrate his distinguished career, hereâs a full evening bulletin from his A3 days in April 1994.
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One of the interesting times of Americaâs newsroom (in terms of identity and reporting style) was between 1998 and 2000. This bold look (completely ahead of its time for an Argentine station!) was launched in June, just in time for the FIFA World Cup in France. The channel devoted a lot of time and spent big money to cover that sporting event. Here are some snippets:
Britainâs ITN adopted a similar color pattern (blue/red) and graphics in March of 1999.
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The 9 p.m. news on KBS in South Korea, 1983:
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A 1991 promotional video for Astra, Europeâs leading Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) system:
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Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of commercial TV in the then-Federal Republic of Germany (weâre still on a divided Germany by then), with the launch of Sat.1 and RTL, then known as PKS (Programmgesellschaft fĂŒr Kabel- und Satellitenrundfunk) and RTLplus.
Worth noting this milestone is quite confusing. Although often is told these were the first German-speaking commercial channels, actually Telesaar was the first, being launched in Christmas 1953 by a company related to the French-speaking Europe 1; additionally, it launched when Saarland was under French rule and, as such, it also aired some French programming. It was closed a year after Saarland was integrated into the Federal Republic of Germany and being now subject to German broadcast laws of then, the monopoly being given to ARD member SR; additionally, Telesaar used the French 819-line standard for broadcast, making it difficult for German viewers to receive it and its authorities to hassle with, as German television sets used the 625-line standard. Their transmitter was given to SR to launch its own Drittes Programm, but not before it was converted to the European standard.
Anyway, back to our topic now: the reason of the apparation of these two commercial channels was the appearance of test cable TV networks handled by Deutscher Bundespost (which had the monopoly on telecoms at the time). The project began in 1974 with small-scale tests in Hamburg, Nuremberg and DĂŒsseldorf, which had 1.3% of connections by 1982 (whilst, by then, private CATV networks were booming in the country and in the German Democratic Republic). However, Helmut Kohl wanted to embrace cable TV as the next move for the media industry, and, by 1978, the federal states agreed to launch cable networks in various test cities: Berlin, Dortmund, Munich, Mannheim and Ludwigshafen/Rhein were selected by the Bundespost to work on the project. These would financed by a new household tax, the Kabelgroschen, integrated in the ARD/ZDF license fee. The project received the support of Leo Kirch, the German movie and media tycoon which was known for distributing MGM and United Artists films inside the Germanophone nations, which wanted to have its own TV channel and eventually end their dependence to ARD and ZDF for airing its movies on TV.
The first project, that of Ludwigshafen/Rhein (Rheinland-Palatinate), launched on New Yearâs Day 1984, after the approval of a law in December 1980 which established a state-run operating company, AKK (Anstalt fĂŒr Kabelkommunikation). The service would offer to 22 television programs, including access to ARD feeds from Rheinland-Palatine (SWF), Hesse (HR) and Baden-WĂŒttemberg (SDR), plus Hesseâs Drittes Programm (Hessen Drei), the Bavarian one (BR Studienprogramm) and both versions of the Southwestern one (SĂŒdwest 3), and an additional educational channel from SWF.
It also offered the feed from ZDF and two additional channels, ZDF Musikkanal, which repurposed ZDF music programming, including its Schlager spectaculars, and ZDF 2, which was a public-private joint venture between ZDF, local newspaper Die Rheinpfalz, and regional newspaper publishers; ZDF provided a daily schedule of timeshifted shows in primetime, just hours or days after broadcast, whilst the papers offered regional news and lifestyle content during the rest of the day, including a teletext service. ZDF 2 was closed in November to make way for 3sat, the pan-European joint venture between ZDF, ORF and SRG SSR.
The service also offered foreign satellite services, including, but not limited to, the French channels TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3, plus the British Satellite Television/Sky Channel and Music Box, and premium service The Entertainment Network. It also offered the radio stations from BR, HR, SDR, SWF and SR, plus AFN radio, Voice of America, and Radio France services, and the all-German service Deutschlandfunk. It also offered four timeshared services for community and religious radio. From 1986, it also offered RPâs first commercial radio service, Radio 4 (now RPR1).
However, the big draw was the launch, that same day, of PKS. The network was established as a joint-venture between Leo Kirchâs company and other companies, including the Bauer Media Group, Hubert Burda Media, the Otto-Maier-Verlag (owners of the Ravensburger puzzles) and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The service launched at 10am that day, first, with a dedication ceremony of the new cable service, followed at 10:30 with a launch speech from JĂŒrgen Doetz, the stationâs CEO. It was followed by a mix of family films, a dubbed French film, American procedural Matt Houston, nature documentaries and some classical music programming; the first show was precisely, a recorded film of HĂ€ndelâs Music for the Royal Fireworks, and the final was the Karajan film of Beethovenâs Ninth Symphony.
After a slow and difficult start, PKS was starting to find its feet, with commercial broadcasting on cable and Independent Local Radio being started to be legalised as existing state broadcasting laws were reformed. Lower Saxony was the first state to change the state law on this in May 1984. In January 1985, the service was renamed Sat.1, after the previous name was seen as âawkwardâ. The abstract color ball which now identifies the station made its first appearance, first, as a resemblance of a satellite dish; however, in 1986, the arrival of new technology and 3D equipment allowed it to become the ball symbol now recognised by many German viewers, and modernised many times to keep up with the decades.
German media website DWDL.de has made a long read (in German) explaning the history of Sat.1âs brand over the years, starting from the 1986 brand (achieved with the expensive Mirage VFX computer from the UK), passing through Fred Kogelâs attempt to drop the ball (which backfired spectacularly as was Kogelâs attempt to hire star presenters and launch an early kickstart to prime time; although a new âpillâ logo in chrome and without ball was implemented, the ball would make gradually its return on the slick on-air graphics from Jung von Matt and Pittard Sullivan over the years leading to 1998) and the âPowered by Emotionâ rebrand from 2001 (made in consequence with the ProSieben and Sat.1 merger, with Sat.1 positioned as a âmodern family channelâ to rival RTL), and ending with the recent and current in-house works from SevenOne Creative Solutions. Something consistent over these years is the four note audio logo composed by Dain Blair of American production music company Grooveworx, used since 1996 and since been remixed many times throughout the years.
One day later, RTLplus went on air. Unlike PKS/Sat.1, RTLplusâ launch was in response to increased pressure by Saarland government members to reintroduce commercial television to that territory, all in response to the cable pilot projects, and profiting from the popularity of RTLâs German service, which was broadcast as an overspill service in longwave radio to most of the northwestern part of the country. Eventually, on January 2, RTLplus launched profiting from that loophole; programming launched with a very surreal launch film.
The service used the resources of its French-speaking service, RTL Télévision, targeted at Belgium and northern France, from its studio at the Villa Louvigny and from a transmitter in Dudelange. This allowed northern German homes to receive RTLplus as a FTA service, and from 1985, via satellite on the Eutelsat ECS-1, which greatly increased coverage. Eventually, some weeks after launching on satellite, in August, RTLplus arrived to most cable pilot services.
RTLplus, given the strict reglamentation at the time, aired from Luxembourg with a Luxembourgian license; this forced it to air the Hei Elei Kuck Eleli, a weekly newsmagazine in Luxembourgian language. However, this changed in 1988, as the network moved to German territory in Cologne, after the North Rhine Westfalia goverment legalised commercial TV, and in mid-1988, the government gave them a German license to broadcast, on the condition they gave time to air regional programming and other news and current affairs content produced by third-parties (for example, dctp, which produces for the network, among others, the Spiegel TV newsmagazine and the infoshow stern TV). This allowed them to produce more original shows and content to comply with German laws; they also won lucrative rights to German football highlights and live coverage of Formula 1 races.
By October 1992, RTLplus was renamed RTL Television, with a posh and modern new logo from Novocom and music from Frank Gari. The rebranding was to distance it from Radio Luxembourg, whose German service was losing ground to the success of commercial radio; since then, RTL has got a slick, creative and American-style presentation, before recently taking on a more understated, European styling, further reinforced by the simpler RTL United presentation introduced in 2021. The network has also used an audio logo since 1997, in reference to its popular âMein RTLâ motto; for a while between 2002 and 2004, another audio logo devised by Novocom was used interchangeably.
The fight between RTL and Sat.1 wonât end there: further fights for rights in all the programming genres and being the first to implement new concepts would be the eventual reflection of the increased competition on German TV. Further articles on DWDL explore these confrontations: for example, when RTL bought rights to Twin Peaks and Sat.1 spoiled the Laura Palmer storyline, leading to the network not acquiring the rest of the series; another example was the surprising acquisition by RTL of Bundesliga highlights from the ARD, but its magazine show (mixing a live audience, comedy and interviews) being initially unsuccessful; but the most well-known example being the race to launch breakfast television first in Germany.
Happy New Year everyone!
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This week forty-five years ago, a blizzard left much of Europe paralyzed. Hereâs some news coverage from ARD in GermanyâŠ
âŠand Antenne 2 in France:
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21 years ago today, the first half of the New Yearâs Day 9pm newscast from Chileâs public commercial network TVN, presented by Eduardo Cruz-Johnson. 24 Horas premiered this minimalistic visual look in August 2002, that included an energetic theme music.
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CNN2, later rechristened Headline News, launched on todayâs date in 1982. The launch was simulcast on the flagship CNN channel and Superstation WTBS:
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With the closure of DW-TVâs German feed, itâs time for a quick recap on its history:
The channel, which launched on April 1992, inherited the facilities of RIAS-TV, a part-time German-speaking television station launched by the American-financed West Berlin broadcaster RIAS, back in August 1988, with test programmes airing from July 3 during eight consecutive Sunday mornings. The service aired during the regional opt-out slots on Sat.1 (both terrestrially and on cable), and not only targeted West Berlin viewers, but also the GDR regions (including East Berlin). The RIAS-TV schedule aired from 6 to 10am on weekday mornings, from 8:00am to 12:45pm on Saturdays and from 5:50 to 6:30pm daily,
The fall of the Berlin Wall the following year and German reunification in 1990 led to changes in the German media landscape, including the winding down of the former GDR broadcaster DFF and of RIAS, as the states gained more power in the control of media regulation. As a result, a deal was signed in 1992, which led to the breaking up of RIAS into three: the first radio station would exist for a while and became focused on cultural programming (it merged with former GDR radio service Deutschlandsender Kultur and the Cologne-based Deutschlandfunk on New Yearâs Day 1994 to form Deutschlandradio), whilst the second radio station (oriented as a CHR/Hot AC pop music service) was privatized; it still exists under the name 94,3 rs2. As for the TV service, the infrastructure was given to DW to establish a TV service, inheriting RIAS-TVâs history eventually. RIAS-TV ended in mid-March 1992 to finalise preparations for DW-TV.
By April 1, DW-TV was up and running as a satellite service from the Eutelsat II-F1 satellite, airing a daily schedule of mostly German programming for 16 hours a day from 15.00 to 07.00 UTC. The core of the schedule was a back-half-hour format, with the top of the hour focusing on the well-known Journal newscast, with German and English newscasts initially airing each up to six times a day. During the half-hour, the service aired a mostly-German schedule of feature and lifestyle programming, with emphasis on German and European issues. By 1993, the schedule was enhanced with the launch of two new Journal slots in Spanish, targeting Latin American viewers which were by then embracing subscription TV at the time.
From the outset, and unlike other broadcasters, DW-TV has allowed broadcasters, both public/state-owned and commercial, to rebroadcast its content, on a barter permission basis or through partnerships. Hence, its programming can be seen on numerous public broadcasting stations in several countries, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
By 1995, the service had started 24-hour broadcasting, with German occupying 12 hours daily, English 10 and Spanish 2. In 1999, a relaunch of the service was made, with all lifestyle programming being dropped in favour of a focus on news and current affairs with a German focus, plus a modular structure for Journal, which allowed for dynamic insertion of longer-form segments and commercial breaks at the discretion of the operator. The channel also got a new look from English & Pockett, which brought the station an international feeling to it.
A refresh of the brand was made in 2003, also done by English & Pockett, and became the channelâs longest-used presentation, surviving a switch to 16:9 when German TV switched to widescreen fully in 2008. In 2007, DW-TV expanded to have Arabic programming, and, in 2009, separate feeds were launched for Asian viewers, with the DW Asien focusing on mostly German content, and Asia+ for mostly English content.
By 2012, as part of a larger reform of DW content strategy and a corporate-wide rebrand, DW feeds were revised again, with Arabic and Spanish feeds receiving a dedicated schedule with more language-specific programming (whilst retaining some space for English and German programming). In 2015, with Peter Limbourg arriving as DW Director General, the English feeds were relaunched to inch more closer to a dedicated news channel; the news service also dropped the Journal name to reflect the new English schedule mixing hourly news (DW News) with back half-hour programming.
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This is fantastic, Medianext.MX! For anyone interested in the history of RIAS, the American-backed Cold War-era radio service, hereâs an English-language documentary produced in 1994 by, appropriately enough, DW-TV:
Part 2:
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And hereâs a documentary on Austrian TVâs role during the Prague Spring and its aftermath. Itâs in German, but thereâs plenty of historical footage. At the 28:25 mark, for instance, you can see one of the resistance broadcasts mentioned by Green in the excerpt above:
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11 years ago this January, RTP1 began airing a set of colorful idents, highlighting Portugalâs marvellous landscapes and its people. The instrumental music was great too! 
RTPâs international service have adopted it as well.
Sadly, this branding was taken off the air in 2016.
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