''Eyewitness News'' is a style of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

news presentation that emphasizes visual elements and action video, replacing the older "man-on-camera" newscast.

History

Pioneered by Westinghouse

The earliest known use of the ''Eyewitness News'' name in American television was on April 6, 1959, when KYW-TV (now WKYC-TV) – at the time, based in

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and owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting – launched the nation's first 90-minute local newscast (under the title ''Eyewitness''), which was combined with the then 15-minute national newscast. The name was then adopted for use by Westinghouse's other television stations – KPIX in

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; WJZ-TV in

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; WBZ-TV in

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; and KDKA-TV in

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– for their local newscasts. After the KYW-TV call letters, management, and some staffers moved from

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in 1965 the station's then-news director, Al Primo, created the ''Eyewitness News'' format. In this format, which was meant to be faster in pace than the standard newscast format (in which an anchor simply read headlines), a reporter in the field would be the "eyewitness" to a news event to the anchor in the studio and the viewer at home. The anchors became personalities instead of presenters with the introduction of banter, or "happy talk" as it was named by Al Primo. Anchors would give their own personal comments in between stories to let viewers know their personalities. Primo used the cue ''

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'' from the 1963 film '' From Russia with Love'' as the musical theme. The format quickly became a hit in Philadelphia and allowed KYW-TV to surge past longtime leader WCAU-TV for first place, a position it kept on and off until the late 1970s. KYW-TV's success inspired rival station WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) to develop the '' Action News'' format to compete with it (after NBC was ordered to re-assume control of its Cleveland broadcasting properties in 1965, the ''Eyewitness News'' name left that city until WEWS adopted it for its newscasts in the 1970s). KYW-TV used the name and format until 1991, and re-adopted it in 1998. All five major stations owned by Westinghouse prior to its 1995 acquisition of CBS have used ''Eyewitness News'' as their newscast title at some point in time; as of October 23, 2017, only KYW-TV continues to do so.

Expansion to ABC

In 1968, Primo moved to WABC-TV in

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and took the ''Eyewitness News'' concept there with him, choosing music from the 1967 Paul Newman film '' Cool Hand Luke'' – the "Tar Sequence" cue (composed by Lalo Schifrin) – as the theme. However, he added a new twist at WABC-TV – light, informal-sounding conversation among the anchors between the news stories and segments, which came to be known as " happy talk". Among the newscasters in the first wave of happy talk on WABC-TV was young reporter Geraldo Rivera, a comical and entertaining weatherman in Tex Antoine, and Bill Beutel and Roger Grimsby as anchormen of contrasting yet complementing styles. Primo also criticized the then-standard practice of "three white men" "preaching the news" at viewers and included women and persons of color to reflect the diversity of the viewing audience. WABC-TV has kept the name and format since then, and has been the highest-rated station in New York City for much of that time. The format, as modified by WABC-TV, was copied by many other stations in the United States, with four other stations owned and operated by ABC – KABC-TV in

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, WLS-TV in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

, WXYZ-TV in

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and KGO-TV in San Francisco – using both the format and the ''Cool Hand Luke'' theme (in the case of KGO, since KPIX was already using the ''Eyewitness News'' name, KGO titled its newscasts as ''Channel 7 NewsScene'' in 1969 and by 1983 simply ''Channel 7 News'', while WXYZ used the ''Action News'' name since rival WJBK-TV was using the ''Eyewitness News'' name for its newscasts; KABC and WLS were free to use the ''Eyewitness News'' name as did WABC-TV). Ironically, WPVI, which developed the ''Action News'' format, is also now an ABC owned-and-operated station. In addition, U.S. Spanish-language stations also use their own version of ''Eyewitness News'', called ''Noticias de Primera Plana'' (''Headline News'', a concept translation in Spanish of ''Eyewitness News'') on certain owned-and-operated stations of Spanish networks. A separate, but mostly unrelated, ''Eyewitness News'' format was developed by Irv Weinstein in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

for WKBW-TV. This format was mostly based not on the original ''Eyewitness News'' (though it used the same logo; in actuality, a slightly modified version of it) but rather on the ''Action News'' format of its sister stations in the Capital Cities Communications stable. While based on ''Action News''s brief and numerous reports, Weinstein built his ''Eyewitness News'' newscast around attention-grabbing catchphrases and alliterative headlines, along with occasional wisecracking or sarcastic one-liners about the day's news stories. This version of ''Eyewitness News'' was used on WKBW as well as other Capital Cities stations where the ''Action News'' name was in use by another station, such as WTVD in Durham, North Carolina. It was also used on a few stations not owned by Capital Cities, including WOKR (now WHAM-TV) in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. Despite its familiarity as a format on ABC owned-and-operated stations, it is actually CBS that owns the rights to the ''Eyewitness News'' name, as it originated from KYW-TV. WKBW dropped the Eyewitness News brand in 2022, as its owner, The E. W. Scripps Company, was convinced the brand was outdated.

Outside the United States

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and other

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n countries during the 1970s and 1980s, some local newscasts also used the ''Eyewitness News'' format, under the names ''Noticias de Primera Plana'' (''Headline News'') and ''Noticias de Acción'' ('' Action News''). The title was used in

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, on

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

affiliate CFRN-TV in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...

. In

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, Metro TV branded its newscasts as ''iWitness'', and abbreviated as ''Eyewitness''. It has since become one of the featured segments on the daytime news program ''Wide Shot''. In

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, BTQ-7 in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

adopted the ''Eyewitness News'' branding in the early 1970s. The branding was also employed by NWS-9 in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

for its evening newscast. TEN-10 in

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and ATV-0 in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

, the principal stations of

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of fiv ...

, adopted the ''Eyewitness News'' branding in the mid-1970s and it was later adopted by other stations in the Network Ten group (SAS-10 (later SAS-7) in 1976 and TVQ-0 (later TVQ-10) in 1978) as BTQ-7 and NWS-9 later relinquished the brand. Regional affiliates for Network Ten including CTC-7 in Canberra (''Ten Capital Eyewitness News'', formerly ''Capital 7 Eyewitness News'', ''Capital Television Eyewitness News'' and ''Ten National News''), Southern Cross Network in Victoria (''Southern Cross/TV8 Eyewitness News'' formerly ''TV8 Newshour''), and QTV in Townsville (''QTV Eyewitness News'' and later ''Ten North Queensland Eyewitness News''), also used the ''Eyewitness News'' name. The Australian version of ''Eyewitness News'' more closely resembled Weinstein's version than the original format, but it became one of the ratings winners in the 1980s due to its one-hour duration unlike other newscasts. Network Ten dropped the use of the ''Eyewitness News'' name in September 1988 (but retained it in Brisbane until October 31, 1988 on TVQ-10) but later reinstated it in July 1989 for six months, and then again in January 1991 until late 1994, this time using its present logo. Network Ten reinstated the "Eyewitness News" branding once again on September 16, 2013 and was later retired on October 31, 2018 as part of a network relaunch and has since been replaced with ''10 News First''. In

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

, ''Eyewitness News'' is used by ''Eyewitness News'', located in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a Megacity#List of megacities, megacity, and is List of urban areas by p ...

and in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

. It is also used by Talk Radio 702 and

94.7 Highveld Stereo 947 (formerly 94.7 Highveld Stereo) is a radio station that broadcasts on the 94.7FM frequency from Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. History The station first went on the air on 1 September 1964, as the first SABC regional FM service, '' ...

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

, 567 CapeTalk and 94.5 Kfm in

United States stations that use or have used the ''Eyewitness News'' format or name

* ¹Indicates station was originally owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting and now is owned-and-operated by CBS * ²Indicates station is owned-and-operated by ABC

References

External links

{{portal, Television
TV Newscast Titles
– listings of other stations that have used the Eyewitness News name

– unofficial site documenting the development of Eyewitness News at KYW-TV Franchised television formats Local news programming in the United States 1950s neologisms