Американский формат новостей: Eyewitness News и его эволюция

American television newscast format

Eyewitness News is a style of television presentation that emphasizes visual elements and action videos, replacing the older "man on camera" newscast.

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 Cleveland 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. with station vice president and general manager saying that "Eyewitness News really was no longer relevant to a modern news and information consumer." 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.

In 1968, Primo moved to WABC TV in New York City 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 Los Angeles, WLS TV in Chicago, WXYZ TV in Detroit 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, 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 Newss 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. 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.

In Mexico and other Latin American 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 Canada, on CTV affiliate CFRN TV in Edmonton. In Indonesia, 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, BTQ 7 in Brisbane adopted the Eyewitness News branding in the early 1970s. The branding was also employed by NWS 9 in Adelaide for its evening newscast. TEN 10 in Sydney and ATV 0/10 in Melbourne, the principal stations of Network Ten, adopted the Eyewitness News branding in the mid 1970s and it was later adopted by other stations in the Network Ten group (SAS 10 in 1976 and TVQ 0/10 in 1978) as BTQ 7 and NWS 9 later relinquished the brand in their respective cities. Regional affiliates for Network Ten 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 1988 but later reinstated it in July 1989 for six months, and then again in January 1991 until late 1994. Network Ten reinstated the "Eyewitness News" branding once again on 16 September 2013 until 31 October 2018, when it was retired as part of a network relaunch and replaced with 10 News First. In South Africa, Eyewitness News is used by Eyewitness News, located in Johannesburg and in Cape Town. It is also used by Talk Radio 702 and 94.7 Highveld Stereo in Gauteng, 567 CapeTalk and 94.5 Kfm in Cape Town.