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The small WNT set IS in TV3. It's nothing but a desk and video walls, except for a small portion of the old set moved to the the right of the video wall behind the desk. A temporary partition has been placed near the east end of TV3 and WNT is broadcasting from behind it in a small space, opposite from where the curved video wall used to be, and behind the former GMA Weekend portion of the set in an area that was used for storage. The rest of the set is under massive construction. The faux back walls in the news coves on each side of the old set have been removed, revealing for the first time, windows which I don't think were ever exposed since the studio first went on the air in the early 80's. Those areas are now gutted to the steel beams. Lots more work to be done.

WNT actually stuck with it for 15 minutes, and had a quick mention of it coming out of the first break before reporting on the impeachment trial showdown and the state of emergency in Puerto Rico. The final two minutes was a wrap up of the breaking news. Regardless of how long each network covered it, keep in mind that the evening news teams at ABC, CBS and NBC spend hours each day building the thirty minute newscast. For them to throw out all that work just minutes before air time and reshape the entire program on the fly, based on actual breaking news, is no small feat. Kudos to all of them.

There's a case to be made, there. The newsroom space on the left looks a little flat, as if they made a big screen print. That said, I don't know what other such studio space of this decent size would be available.

As long as the temp set has been in use, as far as I know.

One of the major issues is that Nielsen isn't subscribed to universally any longer...some have that, and some use Comscore/Rentrak instead, and these days, there are so many ways that numbers are 'proprietary information' that no media organization wants the lawsuits that come with printing an xx.x number (Feder basically has to cherry-pick stations in his monthly radio rundowns to avoid the Nielsen lawsuit hammer because there are Nielsen-tracked stations that don't pay the money for that number).

Digging around online, it looks like the two story building the fire happened in was originally built in the 50's for KCRA radio. It's so disconnected from the "new" part of the building I can see why it's been abandoned. https://www.valcomnews.com/kcra-channel-3-first-aired-nearly-six-decades-ago/ The biggest loss here is a place I'm sure the engineers and IT people loved to hide.

I don’t think props are in order, personally. CBS EN covered it for 10+ minutes of the 30 minute broadcast. How many times can you say ‘Iranian rockets struck an air base with US troops’ over and over again? That’s all that was known at the time of broadcast; anything more was speculation. If WNT carried the story for more than a third of the broadcast, it is consistent with its trend of leveraging the urgency of the news. Also, CBS and NBC immediately followed their evening newscasts with special reports, while ABC is airing normal programming.

Props to WNT for sticking with the breaking new story tonight while NN and EN went into other news.

I tend to think of everything since they debuted the big screen behind the anchor desk in 2004 as a series of incremental updates of that set. They've gone through several desks and multiple video technologies in that time, but most of the rest hasn't changed much other than the addition of the light boxes and monitors around the columns. Certainly nothing as big as Nightly News' moves across the hall and back or CBS' rebuild of Studio 47 for Katie Couric.

they are still in TV3.

That’s exciting. The current WNT set has been around since 2010 iirc with some refreshes here and there. Doesn’t seem that outrageous to me that they’d do a major overhaul especially when the move is 4 years away. That’s an eternity in television.

And agreed it's 100% major in some way...otherwise they wouldn't have so much workarounds made with how they normally produce their shows. This Week originated from Times Square studios. What does that tell you? To me, there is something major going on. I think we can safely conclude that much. And I agree with you. It's not a question on if something major is happening. It's only a question of how major it is.

The main takeway from what we're seeing so far in these images and videos that's been posted in this thread so far regarding this set refresh is that there's a lot more happening behind the scenes regarding this than what ABC is willing to tell us. I truly believe that there is some form of a MAJOR renovation that's taking place in the main WNT set, how major is anyone's guess at this point.

Interesting to note that Nightline is using the WNT desk. I can only speak for tonight's broadcast, though. I don't know if this is just tonight or if they have been doing this for a while.

I don't believe the station was ever off the air, and I think they still had their usual Sunday morning news. The fire did impact its phone system (some numbers and extensions stopped working) as well as some other technical issues.

From FTVLive--a fire broke out at the KCRA building. Thankfully it wasn't widespread and was apparently contained to just an older portion of the building mainly for storage. Does anyone know how their newscasts were affected during the fire? https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2020/1/7/fire-rips-through-hearst-station Edit: There is also this article from the Sacramento Bee. Apparently they was an evacuation at the KCRA studios. Also, the article clarifies that the fire took place early Sunday morning. https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article238981353.html

Well, that sucks. We lost local media coverage in Maine when Al Diamon mothballed his Media Mutt column years ago, so I know firsthand how it feels to lose this vital service. It's not like anyone else is waiting in the wings to take over this beat.

True but I would think the changes under Charles Gibson were a little more than a refresh. At some point his studio was heavily wood paneled with no view of the newsroom until Diane Sawyer took over and a modern newsroom look debuted.

100% agreed. And btw, here is a screenshot I just got of one of the OTS shots. The backdrop is a dead giveaway in that shot as well with the pixelation. I will say that the monitor to the left side looks more realistic than the rest of the backdrop in that frame.

That's a given. The backdrop behind the anchors is the video wall, something they've been doing since before the renovations began. The question is ultimately the legitimacy of the area on the left (to the anchors' right).

To me that is 99.9% likely to not be the actual newsroom backdrop. That again raises my suspicions they are doing major renovations in TV3. And I'm watching them right now and it looks like a video backdrop given the slight pixelated look on the 2-anchor shot.

It'd easier to make that call with some video reference. It would be extremely difficult, but not impossible, to replicate that depth in 3D space with a print.

https://www.newscaststudio.com/2020/01/06/abc-news-times-square-temporary/ Towards the end of this article from NewscastStudio, there is an interesting idea that was raised. Is it possible that WNT is not even in TV3 at the moment, but in a temporary studio?

It is a renovation of the entire space that houses TV3. The space — which is much larger than the small studio area you see on air — has been a construction zone the last few weeks. This isn’t just a set redesign where pieces are moved out and new pieces moved in.

For the record: WCSH airs Daily Blast Live at 12:30 p.m., while WGME airs The Young & The Restless.

I think the content on The TODAY Show first 2 hours is better now than it was between 2008 and 2013. The format/tone 10-15 years ago is a bit outdated now. Remember there are other ways to watch the show now. People can not DVR it and also watch it online later. Ratings only count homes not business like hospitals, gym, etc,. We live in much fast apce society. There probably other reasons why people are not watching these shows like they used to but I am not going to get into that aspect of it here.

I doubt it. The 2018 set was in the now-Tamron Hall studio, after The Chew ended. As elaborate as that set was, I think that was also an exercise in AR and other tech. Could stuff like that be in consideration in this main set update? Maybe, but I doubt they'll use the newsroom set for the 2020 election. I'd be shocked if they don't remodel the second floor of Times Square, once more. They've used that space for the presidential election for the last 5 cycles (plus the first floor for the 2014 midterms).

Thought this was important to share. Just saw a Facebook post from Sharyl Attkisson that they are readying a new set for "Full Measure" to debut this Sunday (January 5th). I have attached the pictures she posted. From what I can tell the set looks great.

I give it a few months max (no more than a year) and "What's New" will be back to just a traditional 5pm newscast--as it should be. Literally not surprised at all. That was a joke of a "newscast" if I ever did see one.