Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Warner/Chappell acquires news theme firm

By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 13 January 2015

I often think that one of the BBC News Channel’s greatest assets is its music. Am I the only one who wills the network’s presenters to run out of news to report on as each hour of output reaches its conclusion, so we can have more of that clips package with the beep, beep, beep soundtrack on top? What, it is just me?

Oh, well, what about the Channel 4 News theme tune! Everyone loves that, right? I mean we all enjoy watching Jon Snow and Krishnan Guru-Murthy doing their news reporting thing, but rarely does it top the opening sequence, “ba ba baaa; ba ba baaa; ba ba baa ba ba baa ba ba baaaaaaaa”. Wonderful.

So yes, news music, that’s a thing. And the production music arm of Warner’s publishing business Warner/Chappell has just bought the assets of Frank Gari Productions and Gari Communications which, as I’m sure you all know, are “worldwide leaders in news theme music”. Though I don’t see the all-time classics ‘Beep – Beep – Beep’ or ‘Ba Ba Baaa, Ba Ba Baaa’ on their roster list, so I’m not sure that can be right.

Anyway, words. Warner/Chappell Production Music boss Randy Wachtler: “I’m thrilled to welcome the undisputed champions of news theme music, Frank Gari Productions and Gari Communications, into the Warner/Chappell Production Music family. Gari is a well-known and trusted source for the world’s most recognisable news themes. I look forward to offering our clients an even wider array of first-class music, and to working with the talented Gari team to soundtrack fantastic television”.