[itsrobert]

"C4 News 2015 2 Min End"

...My curiosity is peaked. 

Honestly, it's not that great. It's basically the 60" closing theme with 60" of silence at the start!

DTV is right in that such long closing themes are pretty redundant in news - but the purpose of them is so that the sound mixer can set off the clip 2' before the end of the show and fade it up when needed. It means it's one less thing to worry about towards the end which can be pretty hectic anyway.

The 'loop' version is ingenious and is used across all/most ITN news bulletins. That consists of a 60" track containing 5" of silence at the start. SpotOn is able to loop audio continuously, so the sound mixer could set that 'loop' off 10" before the end of the show and it would still be perfect when needed. The 5" of silence is to allow a short period for the fader to be closed so the start isn't heard again on air.