Clean opening titles of GMA’s flagship evening news programme, 24 Oras, from 2011.
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Some bits and promos of the refined visual package used by Hallmark Channel Latin America between 2003 and 2006.
Hallmark aired the popular Aussie series McLeod’s Daughters for several years.
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Uruguayan journalist Blanca Rodriguez retired from the anchor desk last night (Friday 9 August) after presenting SAETA Canal 10’s nightly news program Subrayado for 34 years, becoming one of the biggest names in the business.
As a tribute to her career, here are highlights of a 1991 bulletin, where Subrayado’s classic theme (“Sky Wolf”, library music composed by Dom Massaro) is featured too!
BONUS: an intro of the newscast in 1993, that offers a futuristic view of Montevideo and a render of SAETA’s famous transmitter tower.
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Today (GMT) marks the 51st Anniversary of Man About the House, one of the best Thames Television productions.
Although it is self-evident Miss Phyllis Waterbury is an alien as she went from the age of 11 to over twenty in 3 years 
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One of Subrayado’s main competitors is Telenoche 4, created in April 1968 and fronted during its first twenty years by Carlos Giacosa.
This is how it looked like in the late 1990s: an energetic intro (plenty of time-lapse footage!) accompanied by an electronic tango tune shows anchors Fernando Vilar and Maria Inés Fassi working at the newsroom-studio (billed as “Centro Monte Carlo de Noticias”) with other colleagues.
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A compilation of live-action idents from the German broadcaster ZDF in the early 2000s, before and after it changed its logo in 2001.
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And here’s how Telenoche looked like in the early 2000s: again, with the elements of the previous intro, but with a more “raw” styling. This intro came at a time Monte Carlo was modernizing its presentation: the RGB 4 gave place to the “halo” logo.
Vilar retired from his duties at Monte Carlo in 2016, replaced by Daniel Castro. His tenure was marked by a change in the editorial direction of the program, becoming more tabloid and with more emphasis on segments, whilst doing away with the newsroom studio. In 2019 Monte Carlo renamed back to Canal 4, with Telenoche also receiving new graphics; in 2021, a new studio went on air. Castro was abruptly sacked just five years later, under pressure from the broadcaster, as part of plans to change the newscast’s presentation to make it more “attractive” to younger viewers.
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Someone recently did an article on the life of Edward Tan, a Filipino businessman who went big in the Philippine television industry in the second half of the 20th century.
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Popular (and sometimes controversial) Brazilian businessman and TV personality Silvio Santos passed away today at the age of 93. He created and owned the SBT network and hosted a long-running program that carried his name.
In this video from 14 May 1976 (opening night of his owned-station TVS (ch. 11 in Rio de Janeiro), the cornerstone of what became a nationwide network in the 1980s based at São Paulo), he explains viewers how he set it up and how the colour transmitter of the defunct station TV Continental (Rio’s ch. 9, shut down in 1971) was repurposed for his new channel.
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Reposting in right thread now.
“Peck’s Bad Girl” (1959)
The erstwhile Rhoda Penmark on the left, a Jane Withers lookalike who shares that 1930s child star’s surname but was not related to JW, in the middle and someone I never heard of on the right.
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Those Blue Man Group-style idents were amazing! Here are three of them:
Unfortunately, they lasted a couple of months of the air.
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From 23 years ago this week: a good chunk of Euronews (in French) with news, sports and weather segments, including the classic “No Comment” feature.
If I’m not mistaken, Lambie-Nairn made the visual brand and Didier Riey composed the sound package.
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And the reason Lambie-Nairn did the package was because EuroNews was then part owned by ITN. The British news producer bought its stake in 1997, and all operations were placed under the direct control and oversight of ITN’s editor Stewart Purvis. All of the newsgathering and the network’s production remained in Lyon, however.
Here’s more of the theme music used during that period. The presentation was duly refreshed by 2005, with ITN having already sold back its stake to the consortium made by the continent’s PSBs, SOCEMIE, and was completely revamped by 2008.
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A full evening edition of Canal 7 Buenos Aires’ newscast Noticiero 7 on 20 July 2000, anchored by Lana Montalban and Antonio Fernandez Llorente from a very classy studio and with a lovely library piece (Network Music’s “Peak Performance”) as its theme.
On Monday 1st May that year, the channel got a huge makeover, returning to the old Canal 7 name and promising more serious content across its schedule, where news was an important part of it. News director Eduardo Cura hired Montalban and Fernandez Llorente (along with journalist Franco Salomone) to be the faces of the struggling news department and tried to restore its credibility by offering an impartial approach to the day’s top stories. This experiment lasted for almost two years. At the end of March 2002, the three presenters were controversially sacked and replaced by other staff members, apparently due to political reasons. Canal 7, as a state-owned station, has been accused for ages of being the “voice” of the different governments that ruled the country.
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Lana Montalban. Any relation to Ricardo?
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They were not related.
When Lana Montalban was fired from Canal 7 in 2002, she relocated to Miami with her family and has been living there ever since. She also worked in the US in the late 1980s/early 1990s, anchoring newscasts at Telemundo station WNJU in Linden, NJ. Here’s an afternoon newsbrief from December 1990:
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Staying in the Tri-State area, and as a tribute to all-news radio station WCBS 880 AM (which signed off this past Sunday), here are a couple of TV commercials of this station from the 1980s and 1990s. One of them slams rival 1010 WINS, a few years before WINS was bought by CBS, putting both under common ownership.
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It’s not usually mentioned about that August day in 1976 that Anissa Jones and her druggie so-called “friends” decided to take the Quaalude capsules apart and ingest the powder straight on the notion that they’d take effect “faster”. That is so so stupid - you cannot judge correct dosage from a pile of powder! Anissa was also only 4"11 – making her particularly vulnerable to a drug’s effects. Also not usually mentioned is that before calling the cops, said druggie “so-called friends” after finding that Anissa was now room temperature and disposing of what they could of their drug paraphernalia in that house on Littler Lane then proceed to take off Anissa’s earrings, unclasp and remove her necklace and remove her bracelets - and the girls there in the house each chose which ones they wanted. Two of the teenagers then stole and drove off in Anissa’s car.
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With the relaunch of Canal 7, the network introduced a more professional schedule, done in a very shoestring budget (and still with many of the Bosch Fernseh equipments which dated back to 1978), but with programmes which featured a diversity of contents and mixed more serious cultural and informational content with untried and experimental entertainment formats. Some of the programmes were done in collaboration with the regional public broadcasters and even some cable networks, particularly an early evening kids block (Pulgas en el 7) produced by local kids channel Cablín, and a sports news programme produced by TyC Sports. At the same time, Lito Vitale’s rendition of the national anthem began to be used as a start-up and closedown sequence.
Other programmes, alongside the news and children’s programming, was the inclusion of a daily slot for Argentinian cinema in the afternoon, and a daily schools TV segment in the late morning. Programming in prime time was current affairs- and culturally-focused: at 9, an alternative cultural agenda show, De acá, with El aguante’s Martín Souto, at 10, a current affairs block, Tierra de periodistas, which featured various opinionated shows with high-profile pundits, and at 11, a mix of untried entertainment formats, including the cult skit comedy show Todo por 2 pesos, produced by Marcelo Tinelli and which launched the careers of comedians Fabio Alberti y Diego Capusotto; it had been moved from Azul TV, where it had suffered low ratings and poor reviews in its short time on air. Overnights featured a lighthearted current affairs programme, Medios locos.
On weekends, programming was more cultural in flavour, with an emphasis on interview shows, folk music and tango specials, travelogues, some motorsports and documentaries (including imports from the BBC); overnights were filled with specialty cinema blocks.
Later in the year, the network added more programmes to complete the schedule, including Víctor Hugo Morales’ breakfast newsmagazine Desayuno, and the acclaimed limited series Okupas (created by Bruno Stagnaro and also produced by Tinelli); the 11-episode drama achieved very high viewer figures for the channel’s standards, starting in a 3.5 and finishing with a 6.7 rating.
The network also launched, with the new name, a new identity and visual brand, which had a really cyberpunk feeling to these, and cleverly used the colours of the flag.
Changing topics completely: a montage of La Cinq’s branding between 1985 and 1992:
La Cinq was the first major media investment of Silvio Berlusconi outside Italy, but its license was quickly regarded as a protracted process with a strong political overtone to it: fearing Mitterand would lose political control of the Assemblée nationale, he announced the launch of two new FTA commercial networks (in contrast to Canal+, which was partly government-owned through ad agency Havas, which the government had a majority stake), all in order to regain trust from supporters. By December, the licenses were given, after a controversial process, to two consortiums: France Cinq, backed by Jérôme Seydoux of the Chargeurs holding, and Mediaset. La Cinq initially brought the “tutti frutti” style of variety programming of the Mediaset networks to France, including some original productions recorded in Milan, lots of American series and movies issued from Mediaset’s rights (appropiately redubbed to French), and lots of ad breaks (including during films). The network launched with an spectacular launch show, filmed at the Cologno Monzese studios of Mediaset. Christian Morin and Roger Zabel introduce a variety show in the purest Mediaset style, featuring a big group of A-listers any French channel could have dreamt of, including (but not limited to) Charles Aznavour, Patrick Sébastien, Serge Gainsbourg, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Stéphane Collaro, Eros Ramazzotti, Sting, Robert Palmer, Horst Tapper (as Derrick), José Luis Moreno, Celeste Johnson, Hugo Tognazzi, and even then-MGM president (under Kirk Kerkorian ownership) Larry Garshman and Silvio Berlusconi himself. It also has video messages from personalities of the big three American networks, CNN, KBS, Thames Television, Globo, Televisió de Catalunya, dubbed into French:
The special was even broadcast by Berlusconi’s cross-border counterpart, Canale 5:
In March 1986, Mitterand lost his parliamentary majority in the Assemblée nationale, leading to the first coalition government in modern French history, with Jacques Chirac sworn in as prime minister. Just five months later, in August, he decides to dissolve the Haute authorité de la communication audiovisuelle, the first regulator created by Mitterand and which was initially designed to regulate the independence of the then-three public TV networks and the Radio France networks, which were given complete freedom in its editorial and programming remits at the time; over time, the authority regulated the legalisation of Independent Local Radio in France, born out of the pioneering pirate “free radios”, and, in 1982, they authorised the roll-out of privately owned TV, under the form of a culturally-oriented TV network, which would eventually become Canal+.
After Chirac dissolved the HACA, he installed a new, stronger-touch regulator, the Commission nationale de la communication et des libertés, and promptly nullified La Cinq and TV6’s licenses, after considering the licensing process “in non respect of regulatory viewpoints”; additionally, he announced he would readvertise the licenses (including that of the 6th channel, more on that shortly) and privatise one of the public TV networks (which would be eventually TF1). La Cinq made their presentations for a renewal, with La Cinq adding Robert Hersant, owner of Le Figaro and a newspaper mogul close to the gaullists, to balance out a possible political bias, and proposing more investments on news and current affairs programming; the new defending consortium, Société d’exploitation de La Cinq, fended off competition from a consortium led by British financier James Goldsmith’s Générale Occidentale and another led by the Lyonnaise des Eaux/Suez, with the support of Québecoise broadcaster Télé-Métropole/TVA, which soon left the project to join the Hersant-led consortium.
La Cinq’s branding under the James Goldsmith bid, never used
Talking of the 6th channel, the license was obtained by TV6, led by former Canal+ executives Léo Scheer and Jean-Martial Lefranc, and backed by ad agency Publicis, cinema production company Gaumont, radio station NRJ and ad mogul Gilbert Gross. TV6 had a musically-oriented schedule, with a tone considered irreverent and innovative for the period, not unlike Canal+, whose studio-bound programming was heavily taboo-breaker for the time, and reflected the ongoing changes in lifestyles in France at the time. Initially fully music-oriented, with lots of MVs and heavily interactive shows, it soon added a strong catalogue of TV series and movies drawn from the Gaumont library, some never before seen in France.
As for TV6, its consortium was opposed in renewal by the Lyonnaise des Eaux consortium, who had switched to apply for the 6th network after it became clear the Hersant consortium was the preferred bidder for La Cinq, now with the support of RTL, cinema distributor MK2 and the Amaury group. TV6 would succumb to the consortium which would eventually become M6, with the Suez CEO Jérôme Monod being close to Chirac, leading to heavy suspicions of political meddling. By February 26, TV6 had received an ultimatum of 48 hours to close, which it complied on February 28, with a video parodying the Star Wars films. TV6 closed to heavy popular reaction, even leading to a mass protest in the Elysée.
The next morning, M6 went on air, trying to ape its Luxembourgian outcast RTL Télévision for metropolitan audiences; in fact, the short time to go on air led to its programming being an exact copy of RTL Télévision’s programming content, featuring family-friendly shows and a focus on American imports; however, due to its poor coverage and woes about complying with its license, by September, a minimalist schedule more focused on music, magazines and imported programming was implemented. The network also launched its well-known look designed by Étienne Robial which became synonymous with the channel. After La Cinq closed, the channel began having a place in the crowded audiovisual market.
Back to La Cinq, the network under Hersant invested heavily on new formats never before seen in French TV alongside new news output, which pioneered satellite reports and telephone polls: alongside luring TF1’s top stars at the time (Patrick Sabatier, Patrick Sébastien and Stéphane Collaro), the network brought Québécoise and American soaps, motorsports and manga animes to local TV; the network also launched a glitzy new look at the same time, which used high-quality 3D visuals for the period, designed by the creative production area at TDF, under the direction of Alain Vautier and Hervé Loizeau; by 1989, another new look, more sober and less flashy whilst still using glitzy 3D designs.
However, poor OTA coverage (with many low-powered transmitters) and various controversies on content and the number of ad breaks generated mixed results, with the news and current affairs programming being the most watched, and the unsustainable losses led to TVA selling out, which then led to Hersant and Berlusconi fighting over the control of the network; after starting to slowly buy Hersant’s shares, Jean-Luc Lagardère’s Hachette Group took over a majority share and control of the network after a legal battle was settled out by the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (Arcom’s predecessor).
Hachette, who had lost a bid to takeover TF1 to construction mogul Francis Bouygues in 1987, wanted to make La Cinq a quality competitor to TF1’s populist variety shows, investing on modernising its facilities, asking renowed fashionist and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude to design a new look, inspired by pop art and EDM (with music from Michel Hardy), and bringing away Pascal Josèphe from Antenne 2, who reduced the time for news and current affairs, launched over 22 new entertainment programmes and took away Formula 1 rights from TF1.
Again, mixed results were the outcome, with most of the new shows being quickly axed within weeks; it however still had an edge with the motorsport and the news, plus Disney films and Twin Peaks. They also beneffited from AB Productions ending an exclusivity contract with TF1, leading to La Cinq adding many of their original sitcoms and European acquisitions (due to a new law which implemented an European content quota) such as Derrick, but in the expense of Berlusconi selling the La Cinq animated shows to AB, with some even moving to TF1’s Club Dorothée; eventually, La Cinq and AB found a compromise and got a part of the library.
Continued unsustainable losses led to Hachette firing 576 employees shortly before Christmas 1991, and on New Year’s Eve, forced to declare bankruptcy, leading to Berlusconi wanting to take over in full the network, but later agreeing to work in consortium with gaullist senator Charles Pasqua to create a mixed-capital company; intense pressure by opposition politicians and by rivals TF1, M6 and Canal+ (who wanted to create a 24-hour news channel in consortium; TF1 would later revive the project on its own as LCI) led to Berlusconi withdrawing his takeover plans and eventually sealing the fate for the closure of the network. The network ceased operations on April 12, 1992 (coincidentally, the day Disneyland Paris opened) with a special programme (l’éclipse totale) from the network’s newsroom.
After its closure, La Cinq’s license was nullified by the CSA, and in a decree by Communications Minister Jean-Noël Jeanneney, in March its frequency was directly given to the Government itself, in order to launch Arte as a full-time FTA service during the evenings (and no longer as a Sunday evening block on France 3), a move which generated political protests and condemnation by media and cultural personalities, given Arte’s programming was considered too “upscale” and under suspicions the move would lure away viewers to TF1. A further law in 1994 gave the Government oversight to launch an educational-based broadcaster separate from France Télévisions, but not before a temporary service was launched by the Édouard Balladur government, as part of a massive job promotion campaign, and under a project led by Jean-Claude Ambrieu and Oliver Lerner. The new, temporary service, Télé emploi, was initially planned to air for 45 days, between February 1 and March 15, but suggestions by Ambrieu and Lerner led to the service launching after the regional elections, airing for just 20 days between March 28 and April 17. Eventually, the new educational station, La Cinquième, launched on December 13, 1994, with a massive launch event at the Louvre; it started its regular schedule the next day, occupying the daytime off-hours where Arte was not broadcasting (a timeshare which remained until the 2011 switchover, now under the control of FTV and named France 5).
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