CBS News

While CBS Sunday Morning has a rich legacy and devout viewership, its weekday counterpart, CBS This Morning, needed something new. The network decided to align the morning news franchise under the Sunday Morning brand. Along with a visual language based on Sunday Morning’s iconic sun logo, a new Times Square studio once home to MTV’s TRL, a new anchor line-up to join Gayle King, and a new name, CBS Mornings needed a package of music spearheaded by a theme that featured the familiar Goddfried Reich trumpet fanfare “Abblasen”. Along with the intro theme, we composed a suite of music for the various segments, and short orchestral cues of the 5-note mnemonic that editors could use as transitions.

One composition from our CBS Mornings exploration made a lasting impression on the CBS News team and found new life as the headlining theme for CBSN, the 24-hour digital streaming show. We broke this composition down and rebuilt it to accommodate the production needs of this unique format. In addition to soaring horn lines and dramatic percussion, the music features our 5-note mnemonic as a recurring melodic motif, subtly harkening back to CBS’s federal sonic identity.

For CBS Local News, the objective was to create a package that felt more down to earth — relatable, yet badass. To create a closer-to-home feeling, we started with a modern, rhythmic foundation, and added a chord progression that alternates between the major and minor modes of the key to accentuate the flexibility of the mnemonic.

Finally, we tackled the flagship primetime program, Evening News. In the spirit of injecting new life to CBS’ legacy material, we were honored to resurrect the original signature theme, which had been in and out of production since it was composed in 1987. Building off the theme's sonic DNA, we created a modern arrangement and collection of original music for Norah O’Donnell to deliver the nightly news.