ABC Brings Back Classic News Theme

In a case of ‘Back to the Future’, ABC’s TV news will return to their former theme music, twenty years after last updating it. Composed in 1986 and playing for two decades until its replacement in 2005, the tune composed by Peter Wall and the late Tony Ansell has been given an update and let loose on a new generation of news watchers.

The song, described by the ABC as a ‘clarion call to be informed’ was the best piece of music they ever wrote, according to Wall, with the now iconic trumpet renowned across Australia.

"Those particular high notes on the trumpet are the special thing — the what we call 'the look at me' moment. That piccolo trumpet part I wanted played by a specific guy — Dick Montz, who'd trained and played in all the pit orchestras in Las Vegas and had the best chops in Australia. He really knew how to make a little piccolo trumpet sing, which is the trick to that piece of music."

Sound designer David McDonald was brought in to ‘remix’ the track, utilising the original 80s master tapes (which had to be oven baked to ensure the oxydisation did not ruin them after having been unplayed for so long) for an update that includes new beats, based around the morse code for A-B-C embedded across the track.

He also worked on the drum sounds, with the original recording optimised for 80s cathode ray tube televisions with tinny speakers. McDonald aimed to give the new recording some more ‘oomph’, landing on a kids drum kit he had originally purchased for his four-year-old daughter to provide the missing piece.

This is not the first time the iconic theme tune has had the remix treatment. In 2010, Perth EDM act Pendulum remixed the song, landing at #11 in triple j’s Hottest 100 with a version that could well have been used today. Still an occasional feature of their live sets, the banger updated the song for a new generation, itself though, now 14 years old.

Wall and Ansell’s 1985 theme replaced British composer Charles Williams’ Magestic Fanfare, which had been the ABC’s news theme since 1952, making it the longest conescutively-running ABC news theme (so far). The piece is still used at the top of ABC radio bulletins today. Magestic Fanfare itself replaces a shortened version of Advance Australia Fair which was implemented during World War II on the public broadcaster, long before its adoption as the national anthem in 1974.

If this all makes you feel old, perhaps the fact you’re reading (and I’m writing) about a TV news theme is all we need to know. I’m off to try to explain to my kids what broadcast TV is and what that big metal thing on our roof does.