The National (CBC) - Presentation

Presentation

The show's original opening, used from 1969 through 1982, was known as "the Bloops" and featured the title of the program in a "space-age" font in green on the bottom of the screen, superimposed over a wide shot of the set. Sometimes the program title appeared in the centre of the screen, with a black background. Accompanied by synthesized beeps that resembled an old computer, different letters rapidly cycled from left to right until they spelled "The National".

An announcer, usually Allan McFee, would intone "The National, with," followed by the name of the anchor, followed by a cut to a shot of the anchor beside a screen. The anchor of the program would then summarize the top stories as different slides appeared for each of them on the screen.

An internal study was conducted in July 1979 on whether to move The National to the 10 p.m. slot. This study group was composed of Bill Morgan, Mark Starowicz, and Vince Carlin.

On 11 January 1982, the CBC relaunched The National with a radically different format and presentation style that looked very hi-tech for its time. The intro started with a map of the world superimposed on a cube which began to rotate, splitting into smaller cubes as it did. The final rotation revealed the title of the show in shiny chrome lettering using the font Stop. The synthesized opening music featured a fanfare played by The Canadian Brass, called The National.

During the mid-1980s, Quantel Paintbox was used to create many of the graphics for the stories.

In 1989, CBC updated the presentation of The National with more modern computer graphics. The logo used all upper-case letters in the typeface Times New Roman.

Between 1992 and 1995, the main network's newscast was called Prime Time News; the name The National was retained on CBC Newsworld.

From 1995 to 1997, the logo used the font Palatino in upper-case for the words "The National", and Frutiger in upper-case for the words "CBC News" underneath.

A new opening and look for the show appeared in 1997 that retained the style of the 1995 opening but used somewhat more sophisticated and modern computer animation.

In 2001, a logo was introduced that used the typeface Microgramma, centred on two lines, with the CBC News logo underneath in Frutiger. It was short-lived, lasting only a few months.

In the fall of 2001, the presentation of The National was updated along with the corporate redesign of the entire network to have one consistent branding. The New York design firm Razorfish designed the look of this and other network programs. The logo used the typeface Frutiger in upper case.

In late 2004 or early 2005, several graphics were modified, featuring more blue, less beige, and a slightly modified logo (with bolder type for "The National"). These changes were only implemented in selected sequences, sometimes leading to confusion - i.e. the older set of graphics was used at the start of the newscast's opening, and the new set was used at the end of the open.

The opening sequence started with the CBC News ID which flowed into the main graphic sequence, followed by Mansbridge or the fill-in anchor saying "Tonight ..." followed by a verbal listing of the main headlines and accompanying video and graphics. The title sequence would then continue, and cut to an aerial view of Toronto (new shot every Monday which then ran the entire week) and Lisa Dalbello announcing up and under the theme saying "The National; from the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, here is Peter Mansbridge."

In early 2006, the entire news division - including The National and CBC Newsworld - received another update, including a new theme song and new title sequences, featuring the colours red, black, and white. From 2008 to the 2009 rebranding, Tony Daniels introduced the show and the host.

After more than two years in the making, The National underwent sweeping changes on 26 October 2009. Host Peter Mansbridge began delivering all segments of the news standing up, a style pioneered in Canada by the Citytv system. The set was redesigned and the colour blue was mixed into the previous channel's colours of red and white. A press release originally stated that the 2006 theme music would remain intact; however, new music cues by Eggplant Collective were created. Most of the logos and graphic fonts were changed to use Christian Schwartz's Stag typeface.