The Spirit (news music)

"The Spirit" is a television news music package composed by Stephen Arnold. The package consists of 3 CDs containing 100 cuts centered around at least 3 primary themes. It is also a station slogan used by many television stations, mostly found in the Central and Mountain Time Zones.

The Spirit: The News Music Package

The package was composed for WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth and was based on the "Spirit" signature that station has used with all of its news themes since the station's "Spirit of Texas" slogan was implemented in 1984. The original "Spirit" package was composed by James R. Kirk of TM Productions for the Texas Sesquicentennial (which actually occurred two years later in 1986). The original "Spirit" news music package was used from 1984 until 1991.

All of WFAA's news music packages since dropping TM Productions' package in 1991 (along with Stephen Arnold's "Spirit" package) have carried the "Spirit" motif, including the "WFAA 1992 News Theme" from 1992-1996, a customized version of Arnold's "News Matrix" package from 2004-2005, the "Evolution" package from 2004-2007 (which all carry the same signature that TM Productions' package used) and "Propulsion" by 615 Music since 2006 (which is also based on the Spirit signature) and is also being used by other Belo-owned stations.

Although "The Spirit" music package is associated with the "Spirit" slogan, some stations that have used the "Spirit" branding actually chose to use other news packages for their newscasts. Conversely, stations that use "The Spirit" may not necessarily use the "Spirit" branding either.

"The Spirit" Station Branding

"The Spirit" slogan had came into popularity by WFAA-TV and Houston's CBS affiliate KHOU-TV (both stations, owned by Belo Corporation, use "The Spirit of Texas" as their main slogan) and have since 1984 and 1986, respectively. Although a few stations used the slogan as early as the early 1980s. During a period from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, many television stations began to adopt "The Spirit" as their station slogan.

However, a few stations such as KWTV in Oklahoma City and KSAZ-TV in Phoenix have actually dropped the use of the slogan.