Hello News

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Hello News is a popular television news music package and image campaign. Written and composed by Frank Gari for WISN-TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Hello News theme package first became available in early 1978, and by the 1980s it had become one of the most widely used and recognized news music packages in the United States, with numerous local television stations using it.

Some stations continue to use the package, and Gari Communications' composer Chris Gari completed an 18-cut update to the package in 2004. Half of the cuts make use of a heavily disco-themed melody which harkens back to the original Hello News series, and the second half are more of a hard-hitting nature.

The accompanying image campaign was also very popular, and was even used by television stations in Canada, Australia and some Latin American countries.

[edit] Image campaign

The station promotional jingle that accompanied the news theme was one of the most notable parts of the music package. The earliest version was sung by Gari himself; he then modified it into a ballad version sung by Florence Warner. The two versions had similar lyric structures, but the first version had a repeated chorus to account for its faster pace.

Numerous variations of the lyrics had also been written, often to include references to locations and sceneries specific to a particular market (eg. the Yarra River is mentioned in HSV-7's "Hello Melbourne"). In the 80's, WXIA, Atlanta adapted the campaign to include their popular identity, "11 Alive," as well as the popular NBC slogan, "Let's All Be There!"

Several years later, Gari introduced a new variant, mostly consisting of the line "Say Hello". A few other stations aired their own customized versions that deviated from the regular versions even more (eg. WBAL-TV in Baltimore introduced a version which tied in with "Reach for the Stars", the tagline for its then-parent network CBS). All variants, however, retained the familiar "Makes no difference where I go" chorus. Promos utilizing this jingle often included a montage of local people waving at the camera. KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, MO made more than a dozen separate versions highlighting a specific county in their viewing area.

The treatments of the vocals were also varied. While most stations either used Gari's or Warner's vocals, some decided to go for a local twist (in music, and for non-English areas, for language), and have residents in their viewing areas sing the ballad version instead. Country music group Atlanta sang one version of WXIA-TV's "Hello Georgia", while the Osmonds were featured on KUTV's "Hello Utah". The Milwaukee Jazz Orchestra also did a version for local ABC affiliate WISN as well.

Many stations had dropped the "Hello" campaign by the 1990s; however, a few brought it back in the 2000s as they approached their 50th anniversary celebrations (eg. Portland, Maine's WGME and Calgary, Alberta's CICT). The instrumentals and vocals were updated, but the structure to the song itself remained basically the same.