Action News

Another key difference was the focus on the surrounding Philadelphia suburban areas – a response to the movement of residents from the city to the suburbs.

Under the leadership of news director Irv Weinstein, who had developed his own similar format under the name Eyewitness News, WKBW developed much of the talent that WPVI would later hire to boost them to #1 in the market; anchor Jim Gardner (replacing Larry Kane when he moved to WABC in New York), weatherman Dave Roberts, and voice-over artist Jeff Kaye are the three highest-profile WPVI personalities to have come from WKBW.

[citation needed] WPIX in New York City, an independent station at the time, picked up the Action News concept (and music) successfully for its 10 p.m. newscast.

In 2000, WestNet Wireless[1] launched the first Action News brand online with its web-broadcast style format for the markets of Calgary, Alberta and Santa Barbara, California.

The theme was written by Temple University student Tom Sellers, who had briefly been in Daryl Hall's band Gulliver and later formed The Assembled Multitude,[5] and was arranged as a brass-driven rock song.

[6] Two years later, the station (under its new call sign WPVI) replaced the "Action News Theme" with Al Ham's "Move Closer to Your World".

In 1996, the station replaced the original Al Ham theme with a fuller, orchestral version performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.