Classic CBS Radio Stagers and Sounders
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- čas přidán 7. 03. 2010
- During the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, the CBS Radio owned-and-operated news stations had a superior style and sound: tight and cohesive production, lively presenters, excellent engineering and outstanding "audio logos" from a company called Identitones. This compilation contains a few stagers and sounders from the heyday of the CBS Radio local news format.
In partnership with CBS Laboratories, CBS Radio developed a unique system to advise affiliates of news bulletins. When activated from network headquarters, CBS NetAlert transmitted coded information over the network lines to each station to communicate anything from the start of a special feed to a national emergency. The system had the capability to override local programming for a special report from CBS News. A NetAlert receiver is seen toward the end of this video.
All rights are acknowledged.
I would love to have that CBS news sounders as a text message alert sound on my cell phone!
Omg!! I miss hearing the old sounder! I would hear this at the crack of dawn at my grandmother's house when I was a kid....til this day she still listens to this station every morning. :-)
"...CBS News I'm Christopher Glenn." Reminds me of late night road
trips as a kid in the late 70's. Fast asleep, then jarred awake by the CBS Radio Sounder, in the back seat of our 1977 Mercedes-Benz 240-D. Charlotte, NC.
BTW, the piano note that signaled the top of the hour on CBS was an A above middle C, which is at 880 cycles -- a tribute to CBS flagship station WCBS, broadcasting at 880 kHz.
My father was a heavy equipment operator and would travel all over LI fom our house in N. Merrick. He would leave very early in the am and our radio was always set on this station. Even though the radio was on top of the fridge downstairs, I could still hear it and knew my parents were already up for the day.
My oldest brother served for the US Army in Vietnam. My mom had a big map of Vietnam posted on the wall next to the fridge. When the reports came on where the latest action was she'd check it on the map to see if my brother was near there. Memories of the 60s.
I'd know that station alert sound anywhere!
The headlines stager is one of my cellphone ring tones. Radio news tones are great for ringtones because they are designed to get your attention, after all.
Ah, yes. I grew up in the D.C. Area as well and that CBS News Sounder was a staple of my childhood. My great-grandmother always had her radio tuned to WTOP .
Love the sound of Douglas Edwards' voice.
CBS Radio and Television network news was "THE" news, during the 70's and 80's.
I grew up in the D.C. area and recall that this entire package ran on WTOP for at least 20 years.
However, when WTOP first went all-news in the late 1960's it had to use a different jingle package because this one was being used by WAVA, which also had an all-news format at the time.
I eventually wound up working at WBBM in Chicago for about a year, which was one of the CBS-owned all-newsers that has never used this package.
The six notes that form the basis of the CBS news sounder (all versions including current) were originally meant to reflect a jingle with lyrics "C - B - S - ra-di-o."
Brings back memories of better times. RIP Christopher Glenn. Mike in Fresno, Ca.
I always loved the CBS news sounder!
NewsRadio 78, WBBM, Chicago................CBS News, this is the World Tonight. That was always cool. When I was a kid, I always tried to tune in at the top of the hour to hear the sounder.
Definitely brings back memories. I prefer the old sounder as well.
1:08- "Set your time to WCBS. Four tones will follow; the final loudest tone marks tthe exact time...". "It's - o'clock".
Thanks for putting this up, I was looking all over for the old five-note electronic CBS Radio news sounder tag. That used to really pop coming out of a tinny little AM radio - which I guess was the point! A very distinctive sound that I remember from childhood when parents listened to radio news. I agree that the old version is so much better than the updated version.
When I was living in Bakersfield Ca, a few years ago, I would listen to radio talk shows during the day and night. Every time the CBS news sounder would come on, and my cat Goldie would hear it, his ears would perk up and he would try to see where that sound was coming from. Nice memories there. Mike in Fresno, Ca.
I very much remember the original CBS Radio Sounder from listening to WTOP 1500 (CBS News, this is Doug Poling...) in the
early 1970s. RIP.
1240 KFH in Wichita is a former CBS affiliate. When I was a kid way back in the 70s, I would spend my Saturdays making sure to always listen at the top of the hour just to hear the chime and the sounder. Thanks for the memories.
I love this classic sounder brings back memories of great times many years ago
I recall hearing those 'chirps' whenever CBS would cut in and out. Didn't realize they were part of the NetAlert signaling.
That first one (WCBS-NY) is the voice of good friend Paul Anthony, who was based in DC where he appeared regularly on WETA-TV (PBS), WTOP-TV weather (CBS) and had a jazz radio show on WGMS-FM and, later Sirius XM, as well as voicing IDs, spots and promos for stations and advertisers across the country.
It...kind of sounds like it's John B. Wells, actually.
It scared me too when I was very little but also thrilled me in kind of a fun way - like getting a jolt from a horror movie. It became less scary the older I got.
You're at 88 on your AM dial, WCBS New York, for radio news, the best in the business :-)
That news sounder has stuck in my head since the mid-sixties, when I was going fishing with dad & grandpa.Grandpa was listening to the news in his '65 Rambler, then that theme came on the AM station he was listening to.Have heard it a few times since then.Wow, the memories!! Thanks for posting!!
I loved that classical cbs radio news sounder!
I still would rather they bring back the older radio sounder from 1967-2001. Maybe if the good people over at CBS Radio News would take the time to look at this great collection of posts, they might see the popularity of the older news sounder and bring it back. For now we can hope.
@caatcher I remember hearing the tone on CBS Television during the 60's and 70's and is still used today on CBS Radio just before the top-of-the-hour newscasts.
Hearing these classic CBS news sounders is great!!! Why CBS decided to update its news sounder is beyond me!
R.I.P., Classic CBS News Sounder...1967-2001. :'(
--- These old ones come off as a sonic assault to the listener and sound quite annoying. These sounders always preceded some awful news item about a national disaster or some celebrity death and always made me think something terrible has happened. Never much cared for them.
The post-2001 CBS News Sounder sounds terrible & comes off as sounding like nails on a chalkboard!!! Nothing like the classic CBS News Sounder!!!
R.I.P., Classic CBS News Sounder...1967-2001. :'(
+ChihuahuaboyDH agree.
Interesting, I reason I saw this video was from being on the site Kinder Trauma, where someone confessed they were terrified of the tune at around 1:14 as a little kid back in the 70's because that's when they would hear all about the horrible things happening in the world. Some things never change.
GOD, it's great hearing the Headlines Stager (0:48) & the Top of the Hour Chimes (1:07) again! As a kid, I thought the chimes sounded a little ominous, but they sound like an old, familiar song to me today. Totally gonna save these for myself.
(Also LOVE the helicopter traffic sounder!)
I distinctly remember hearing the classic CBS Radio News sounder from 1975-95, since I always listened to WCAU, WCBS, and KCBS (all news radio stations) all my life. Also loved the classic WCBS sounders! Used to listen to WCBS since I could get reception from southern NJ.
I should add that I do have as my text message alert sound is the old sounding NBC chime!
THIS IS SOME THING I REMEMBER SO WELL!!!!
Yep, WCBS, WTOP, WBBM, KNX, WCAU sounds are burned into my brain.
The third one which comes approx. :46 seconds in is my favorite and should have been kept. It's the "Headlines Stager." Thanks for sharing.
LOVE the "vocal donut". It sounds like the classic WBBM/CBS theme of which it's almost impossible to find a high quality copy.
Sweet Memories!! Factual And Special!! A Splendid 6.
Ahh old memories of WWJ 950 AM in Detroit!
Wow, what a great collection. Thanks for posting. Dennis
Wow. This brings back memories. Thanks for posting!
GOD, it's great hearing the Headlines Stager (0:48) & the Top of the Hour Chimes (1:07) again! As a kid, I thought the chimes sounded a little ominous, but they sound like an old, familiar song to me today. Totally gonna save these for myself.
The NetAlert receiver is fantastic!
Goodnight Jim Donnelly, Robert Vaughan, Ben Farnsworth, Pat Parson, Neil Bush, Lou Timmilot, Craig Allen, Ed Ingalls, Ken Pruitt, etc. wherever you are.
Thanks for posting the original CBS Radio News Theme- They ruined it in January 2001 when they remade it- Took the Classic out of it. Mike in Fresno, Ca.
I remember, as young child, listening to a news sounder similar to this, years ago, on 1150 CKOC, Hamilton, Ontario. I wonder if that CKOC used CBS radio, as a source of news (other than local news),or they simply used their sounder. Good memories.
Thanks for posting Vintage Television
I got the TOH tone and news sounder in my head randomly remembering 740 WWNZ when they used to play that at the top of every hour.
Both the CBS headline stager and the CBS News sounder are very memorable indeed .WCAU AM 1210 and WCBS 880 used them all through the 1970's . I still live between both markets . Closer to Philadelphia though .
fun to listen to these...would love to hear (if anyone has them) the sounders/jingles that kcbs radio (all-news station in san francisco) used until the late 1990s, which were better than the ones the station uses now.
Gotta love that WEEI Newradio 59 music at the top of the hour!
very interesting and informative
Washington's WTOP was not CBS-owned in the 1960's/1970's, but a longtime affiliate (which at one point the network was 50% owner, along with the Washington Post newspaper).
5 people prefer the current 2001-present digitized version of the CBS news sounder, which is horrible! The other 154 people have excellent audio taste (myself included)!
R.I.P., Original CBS News Sounder...1967-2001.
That's because everything that gets new isn't necessarily better. Now, TOP sounds like it's trying to jar you into excitement every time the Sounder goes off. Listen to them back to back and def prefer the old one I grew up with...
was the original cbs news jingle used for 9/11/01????
Actually the original CBS News Sounder was retired around 1981, 82, 83 ish. A similar sounder to the 1969 version but updated for the 1980's was introduced around 1984-85. The 2001 was a better attempt to update the sounder and move away from the 1969 style than the one in 1983ish.
I can imagine Les Nessman from WKRP getting a kick out of this youtube video
That "bong" was used on-the-hour on the CBS Radio and TV networks.
In fact, I still think it's used before hourly radio newscasts and sometimes on the TV network.
The headline sounder at 0:48 was used for years by Seattle station KIRO 710 as its news sounder.
When I was very young (4 or 5) that hourly news sounder would scare the H377 out of me, much as others have said the Screen Gems sounder of the same day did.
My dad got clever, and learned to turn the radio volume down at the city-of-license, and back up about 7 seconds later!
Is it just me, or was there a subtle change in the sounder circa 1970? I think it had even more of a screech in about 1968.
I always looked forward to waking up to the best partnership on radio, Jim Donnelly and Robert Vaughn (no not the actor).
@VintageTelevision
the musical notes used in most tv/radio themes/sounder are based on the broadcaster call letters, show name and broadcast outlet initials
I liked those sounders before I knew that's what they were called. Found that out in college. NBC had neat ones around the same time for the top of the hour, and for Monitor on weekends.
One thing--I think_ CBS Net Alert was in use as early as the JFK Assassination, although sounders weren't being used yet.
I don't care for the revised version- This was a case where well enough should've been left alone. Updating it took the classic away from it.
I remember the first time I heard the classic CBS News top of the hour sounder: It came in 1991 after when my mother picked me up from school and she had it on. The station? None other than KCBS San Francisco (some say the station that started radio). They retired that sounder in 1999 for a cleaner version. Very amusing this video includes voiceover from Douglas Edwards-as a way to let people know the CBS sounder really started in the 1960's. Don't remember the headline stager.
it's very rarely used on a non-all-news format, i have a check of WCBS-FM (oldies), using this sounder. plus, i think another oldies or top40 station up in mississippi, (hatisburg, or natchez), used it in the early to mid 90's.
I remember on TV in the mid 70's when there was that bong right when Captian Kangerroo came on
at 1:08 at the "Top Of the Hour Chimes" I have a Aircheck of KOMA in 1991 with the CBS Intro to the news using that same sound!
Oldies Radio seriously! if only classic hits stations could at least use this sounder, yes, broadcast current events, but at least use this sounder to fit in with the classics.
@Harlan346
The top-of-the-hour sounder is based on a 1960s vocal: "C-B-S Radio" are the words.
I know that net alert sound. It always plays before the severe weather report on our local radio station.
That news sounder at 1:15 sounds a LOT like the motif "See the USA in your Chevrolet" song made famous by Dinah Shore.
I remember the jingle at 1:14 when I was a kid in the 70's
@MarkJ1961 You probably are writing about the 1977 New York Blackout, when "CBS Radio Mystery Theatre" was interrupted for a Net Alert bulletin on the blackout.
If you mean the top-of-the-hour CBS News sounder, yes -- although, it is an "updated" version of the classic that is heard in this clip.
I miss the radio sounder from the eighties when WCBS Newsradio 880AM.
Liked the sounders at 0:41 and 1:21
What would number 14 very special report be used for on the Net Alert?
I LOVE the news sounder...do they even use it anymore???
May I be able receive a mp3 version of the Stager, Hour Chimes, and the News Sounder to use as a ring tone on my Motorola? I do miss the old CBS News Sounder at the top of the hour on WCCO.
And now the house that Paley built is shedding its entire inventory of radio stations. As they are starting up their "CBS Now" streaming-for-a-fee service, can television be that far behind?
I love that original sounder.... but I HATE the updated version of it. It sounds like a kid playing a keyboard. CBS should go back to the old sounder.
Actually it was the one at 1:50 .The other one had a regular piano entry.The one from the 70's had an electric keyboard
At 1:40 you got the actual intro jingle I've been looking for! It's the CBS audio logo. For a long time I thought that this (da da dee da-dummmm) sound was that of AP Network News. Nope!
So we hear those musical notes and what follows must be some kind of musical Morse Code for something. Morse code wasn't pitch related, it was rhythmical I understand.
+powergirl901 They were imitating a teletype sound.
I could swear I hear AP Network News announced as well.
Was the top of the hour chimes intro unique to WCBS?
If CBS radio was still using the Netalert system on September 11th, 2001, the network probably punched-in "15" at some point that morning.
I always forget the guys name who did the open and voiceover to the top-of-the-hour ID. He was the voice for years of WFAA-TV in Dallas as well. Anyone know?
+Brad Gibson John Wells?
Christopher Glenn
@lebaron1982 On the CBS News website, scroll down on the right side and look for the CBS Radio logo, and you can hear the current hour's headlines (including the new sounder)
@fricker05 I'd like to get that ,too! Someone posted a video not too long ago with news sounders from various radio networks downloaded on his cellphone,but I haven't been able to find it again,and it's not listed in my viewing history,either.
How did they make the opening with the electric keyboard at 1:50?What type of equipment did they add?Its sound like a distorter,modulator.or even some early 1970's computer program to give it that unique sound even thought it is in Am radio mono
The CBS news sounder sounds like the start of the "See the USA in your Chevrolet" commercial.
at 1:13 it would be nice to have the 90s version of that where the first tone is on key instead of off key. the 90s version is exactly the same except the first not is more matching on key.
@1L6E6VHF I remember the changes, the latest version seems more ''orchestral''
awesoem they just dotn make them like they used to
I don't like the new version of the CBS News sounder. When I was younger, I spent a summer in St. Louis with my grandparents. they listen to KMOX all the time. When I went back to Nantucket that fall, I heard the old news sounder on WEEI, and thought "Hey, they have that KMOX sound too!"
I grew up in the D.C. area and began a 25-year journalism career there, and recall that WTOP used pretty much this entire package for at least 20 years.
However, when WTOP first switched to all-news around 1968 or 1969, they had to use a different jingle package for a few years because another station -- WAVA in Arlington -- was using this one with its competing all-news format.
I eventually worked for about a year at WBBM in Chicago, a CBS-owned all-newser that has never used this package.
Gee! The bed sound like a Enforcer themed bumper.
830 WCCO in Minnesota had the best. "Minnesota's Eight Three Oh, W-C-C-*Pause* Oh!
God forbid the NetAlert goes up to 15
Jesse Lockhart When was the NetAlert used?
2:18 The numbers on the card (1-15) indicate the number of beebs the NetAlert sends out to CBS radio stations indicating what news to prepare for. 9-11 would've been a level 15 alert if NetAlert was still in use.
Would the same been used for Boston? What were some famous times Net Alert was used?
IMO, Boston would've been a (9-10) Bulletin. Had attacks happen in more places than Boston, then it would've been a 15. 9/11 Took place in New York, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania all on the same day. That would warrant a national emergency.
CBS News then and now always had the best radio news
I swear if I owned my own radio station, I would do anything in my power to get the rights for the sounder at :48 for the top-of-the-hour news! But it probably will not happen....well its whatever.
KRLD 1080 NEWS RADIO........... !!