Weeters

Broadcast graphic design has trended alongside popular web app/mobile phone UI for a while now, and that's also stagnated quite a bit from where it was 15 or so years ago. Remember how news graphics always had to be "shiny" when that was the Apple iOS look? That slowly died off as Apple and Google shifted away from that design language. The Apple design language itself has become a broadcast graphics package. The corporate design world has a lot of weird stuff going on right now, the kind of abstract 3D ribbon-y stuff and flowing photorealistic materials is popular, along with funky fonts (more the design in the article than what it's talking about), but I'm not sure how any of that actually translates into the apps that these companies using them make, let alone local news. There is a lot of reasons why news graphics have trended this way, and I think we're more or less stuck here for the time being. Money and talent are two major factors at the local level. You can't have the talent without money, and you don't make money if your expensive talented designers are constantly making news graphics, so templates it is! Go find an agency to develops a template-driven "design system," then keep it for a long time because it was expensive, and nobody's doing anything wildly different anyways. TL;DR: The era of "unique" broadcast design died when motion graphics stopped being almost exclusively broadcast-related. It shouldn't be surprising this happened as video ads on the internet became commonplace.

The streetside studio was an interesting concept when NBC brought it back in 1994. But, it's no longer 1994. It says a lot that everyone else has abandoned/is abandoning their streetside studio concept. It doesn't magically make the show better, or increase ratings. It has become a magnet for weirdos and people with an axe to grind, and that can be seen by how the area outside 1A's home base has been filled with a bunch of giant planter boxes over the last decade. The only way you can end up on TV now (and that seems to be a lot fewer people clamoring for that than before) is by being in the area that their security and/or the NYPD can shoo you away from the window. Look at the stark difference between this pic from a 1999 wild feed and nearly the same anchor position from this morning, and another similar one from this past week. You can't even see across the street anymore. Are they in New York City? Can't tell, it's entirely obscured by plants (and not even an actual plant in half of the second image, it's a screen showing a plant). The shots have all been adjusted too, go back and look at late 90's/early 2000's clips and match them up with the modern look... New York City is hidden from view. So, I ask, what is the point?

Honestly, it would not surprise me in the least if this hypothetical new 3A set ended up being for Nightly, NBC News Now, and Today. Not only is a bunch of studio space and newsroom space about to open up, but technical spaces as well. It would not shock me at all if NBC chose to consolidate everything inside 30 Rock. The streetside studio thing has to be becoming more trouble than it's worth, and they're about to have at least two full control rooms open up.

That WNBC set was the one in 6B before Fallon took it over. 3K is something like 3/4 to 2/3 the size of 6B. There's going to be a glut of extra space on the 3rd floor once MSNBC moves out. I'd suspect they'll refresh/replace the set in 3A once that happens and hand it over to Nightly.

Hello, everyone. I have an update regarding LocalNewsTalk and our partner Discord server The NewsCenter. On Monday, The NewsCenter announced that it will be merging with the Broadcast Plaza Discord server. Emma's announcement to The NewsCenter follows. There have been a few questions as to what is happening to LocalNewsTalk following this merger. The answer is: not much! LocalNewsTalk will continue to exist, and we are working with Broadcast Plaza to continue the partnership we started with The NewsCenter. We will be updating our Discord page and adopting some Broadcast Plaza co-branding in the coming days and weeks. While the best place for questions about this merger remains the #repack channel mentioned above, I will do my best to answer any questions that this side of things may have below.

This. It's also not wildly technically complex. It's a bunch of big TVs, and that's perhaps one area where everything is not truly "more expensive"... Both consumer and commercial displays have come way down in price. A 75' Samsung 4K UHD HDR smart TV is slightly cheaper than it's commercial counterpart. The fabrication of the set probably cost much more than those displays did total. They also have like, a whopping total of 20 lighting fixtures, which is why it's lit so flat, and why it look underwhelming. Again, this is a trend, because good lights are still expensive (The new WABC set is lit with a lot of Skypanel S30s and S60s (linking the new version because the old version is on clearance sale), with the money WABC spent on just lighting their set, they could have probably bought the KHQ set 10 times over.) and KHQ doesn't have the money to do that. They seem to have dumped their conventional lighting fixtures (non-LED and non-Fluorescent) visible in that last broadcast from the old set, because those are also expensive to operate. Yeah, it doesn't look as good as it could if they had a massive big-market budget. But this isn't a big market, it's Spokane, and it's still a nice modern look.

This is a fine set for Spokane and market 73. Folks, I think we need to collectively come to the terms with the fact that the money is gone, everything is more expensive, and design trends are different than they were 20 years ago.

If you're wondering the "why" for this project... Mainly why it took this long... The exact thing I expected they were waiting for happened. Early last year, plans were released for a major redevelopment of the area surrounding the current building. Of course, they were released before the move was announced, and the current building is notched out of the development, but that means their property suddenly became a lot more valuable. WFAA will likely be next, the city of Dallas just bought the old Dallas Morning News building (after the proposed redevelopment fell apart) to secure more land for a $3.7 billion redevelopment of the convention center, which is heavily focused on redeveloping the exact area that WFAA occupies.

So, I actually think there might be something here. Maybe. It's a hunch. Maybe I'm wrong! But, allow me to speculate for a moment. WSVN is in a very unique situation right now. They have plans to build a brand new facility, and their current owners are developing the real estate for both the current facility and the future one. They own the land at both sites, in fact, the future facility is on empty land they've held for years, and the current facility is on land they want to develop into expensive condos. The condo development wouldn't be planned if they didn't think it would make money, and it will probably make enough to pay for the new WSVN facility several times over. This whole new facility project has always had the underlying motive of Sunbeam wanting the station off the current land because they see the value in it, and they have a lot of empty land in Miramar that they can plop it on, to get it out of the way. The common saying is "Disney doesn't buy stations", but there should be an asterisk there. Disney doesn't buy stations because Bob Iger is convinced most are overpriced. Sunbeam has a very interesting position here. Their primary business is, at this point, property development. Building a building just to lease it out is what they do. It seems to me, like they could be in a position to sell WSVN at a "discount", with the remainder being more or less made up via a long-term lease on the new facility. This would be a huge win for Sunbeam. They can develop land that has sat idle for years, and have it immediately start making money, from a tenant that you really wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt. They'd still make money off the station for years to come, and best of all, it'd be a predictable amount. It is notable that, despite the project being announced some time ago, the parcel the new facility will sit on was untouched as late as October of last year, over a year after it was announced and approved by the city. What's the delay? The fact we're hearing about this now means there's probably been talks about this for months. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Sunbeam put the brakes on the project in order to provide the ability to any possible future owner (I think FOX is also in play here) to make changes before the construction begins. I'm not sure we're done hearing about this "deal"... I don't think Disney would settle for a .2, if there weren't other things in the works. I've been saying since the new facility was announced that this seems ripe for them to sell the station and make money off the lease, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity to do so.

The whole point of streaming/digital outlets is to reach people who are not watching traditional, OTA TV.

I skimmed the thread too fast! There wasn't any discussion so I suppose it was still overlooked... That said I've updated the post. It sure does seem like that. I believe the big studios where Springer and them taped were also on the second floor? The third floor listing shows that part of the building as "Open to Below".

An update to the previous report that NBC was downsizing their space in NBC Tower... Not sure when it went up, but the landlord for NBC Tower has begun to advertise what seem to be the spaces WMAQ will be leaving. Curiously, is the Loopnet listing description for Suite 100. Additionally, space on the third floor and fifth floor is being advertised. A number of building permits were issued last summer/fall for the 2nd-4th floors as well. Universal has ceased advertising the production studios within the tower. I'm pretty certain it is, but Is someone more familiar with WMAQ's space able to explain if the space being advertised is the current newsroom?

It probably will. It's mostly just all the Morning Blend people, and they'd still be in the building at that time anyways. Same goes for staffing. They had a 3PM news before because the PM production crew is already in the building by that point (and god forbid they have any time during their workday where they're not producing live television). It's a sunk cost on the production side, in the studio at least. The added costs to produce What's Brewing Wisconsin will probably be another producer and the additional host, and maybe paying for part of a photographer's day. The real question is whether or not "Morning Blend but in the afternoon" is a viable product. Morning Blend prints money, but I'm not sure if you can have lightning strike twice four hours later.

Similar to the WABC set, it might be best to hold judgement until we see it with the lights on!!! N4 was also partially recycled from a set that existed before the fire. Most of the current set is video wall, including the main background.

Hello everyone, Invision Community, the software that powers this forum, is preparing a major upgrade that we will likely be moving to in the coming months. While there are a number of changes and improvements that I'm looking forward to, one change may negatively impact some folks around here. Logging in to the forum will require entering the account's email address, instead of the account's username. This will not affect you if you're using Google or Discord as a method to login. How can you prepare for this? It's easy! Check the email address associated with your account by clicking here and making sure it's up to date. This is also an important thing to do in case you ever get locked out of your account and need to change your password. There will be additional notice made before this change happens, and I am considering turning the feature on before the software upgrade as a way to prepare. Please note: for security reasons, under no circumstances will I disclose an account's email address. If you get locked out of your account because your email is not current/you are unsure of what email is tied to your account, you will need to create a new account. Please don't hesitate to reply here with any questions you may have. -Weeters