Spring Rubber

Zouves did the full Monday-Friday shift again this week. Last weekend, Beeson introduced herself as "in for Natasha Zouves". Wonder how long that will keep happening if this arrangement remains in place.

On the air, Vivian would often talk about how 76º is the perfect temperature. To this day, I still associate that temperature with Vivian every single time I see a forecast of 76ºF.

Jeff recently came back in... I believe 2021 for the first time since his original departure. I haven't seen Vivian at all since she originally left.

Another thought is that maybe they purposely don't want to commit anyone to the 1pm-3pm block either because A) They're exploring poaching a big name talent, and adding them to the lineup would shake up the schedule (possibly forcing Behrle into the earlier timeslot), or B) They're contemplating launching a daytime talk/panel discussion show at some point, potentially at or around 1pm ET. I do hope they're able to add something more to the weekends before late 2024, but I don't know if they're still contractually obligated to air a certain amount of hours of Blue Bloods/Last Man Standing on the weekends still?

Zouves was given this full weekend off after anchoring 7 days in a row from Sat 4/22 through Fri 4/28. Keleigh Beeson filled in both Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. I'm guessing that during this upcoming week, we'll start to see the rotation of anchors on the 1pm-3pm ET block.

NewsNation ran with Natasha Zouves all five days this week, after she also anchored the prior weekend. I'm guessing they wanted a consistent anchor from 1pm-3pm ET for the first week of this new schedule. Maybe they'll give her this weekend off and then switch to her split weekend/weekday schedule next week. ...or maybe she'll just work 9 days in a row if they don't have anyone available to fill in this weekend, lol

I hope Micah recovers, as well. I know back surgery is always hit or miss... I could foresee Tom cutting out the nighttime newscasts and just keeping the 5pm and 6pm at some point.

With the move into the new DC studio this past Monday, On Balance got a new logo and graphics. Compared to The Hill, they use a smaller desk for On Balance that's intended for Leland and only one guest.

Oh wow, that's Brigit's first field assignment ever, IIRC. I wonder if this means they're gonna throw her out there in the raingear to report on it live tomorrow as the actual severe weather event happens.

Biggest surprise for the new schedule today is that the entire 10am-5pm ET block originates from the main studio, all with the anchors sitting in the exact same position up against the right-side video wall. I really thought that at least one of the shows would switch it up either by hosting from the newsroom or by hosting in the main studio, but from a different position, especially Behrle's show, but nope.

I see that leading up to the schedule change, the weekend Edition of NewsNation Prime has been moved back down into the main studio. (From checking YouTube clips, looks like this change happened April 8th.) The weekend show had previously been using the newsroom set ever since the weekday edition of Prime was discontinued.

There is a rather significant tornado outbreak tonight (worse than the SPC's 5% tornado outlook would have implied). I give TWC huge props for pre-empting the 8pm-10pm ET block of long form programming on the linear channel with nonstop live coverage, something they probably would not have done if they didn't already have Carl Parker and Todd Borek in the house for what was going to be the streaming-only show. But, you'll probably notice I said 8pm-10pm ET, right? Exactly, TWC dumped coverage and went back to long form at 10pm ET even though there were (and still are) multiple tornadoes on the ground. Over at Fox Weather, they did the exact same thing and dumped live coverage at 10pm ET (as is their regular schedule). I guess both networks equally agree that weather doesn't happen after 10pm ET, just like weather doesn't happen on weekends.

So because they don't yet have an anchor for the 1pm-3pm block (which I honestly didn't see that coming), I get the impression that we'll probably see Natasha Zouves anchor three of the weekdays so that she can retain her weekend duties, and we'll probably see the rotation of correspondents anchoring on the remaining two weekdays. I'm guessing the show generally won't be Chicago-based when those correspondents are anchoring? (I'm not sure which city each of those correspondents is based out of...please correct me if I'm wrong.

I like the look of the wider shots. The shots that get a little tighter, like the "Sweet 16" and the "Suspected Chinese Agents Arrested" examples above, tend to make it look somewhat like a virtual set. But hey, I get it... you gotta do what you can with the space that you have. Still no sign of overall new network graphics, I see.

On the other hand, Since Stephen Morgan didn't get any time off while Bender was out, I'm thinking that Morgan is gonna take a week or two off pretty soon to recharge the batteries.

Steve Bender tweeted that he's back from paternity leave today, so at least the weekday schedule will be back to normal finally.

In general, for both Fox Weather and TWC, they're generally finalizing all weekend staffing and scheduling plans by Friday morning. So on Friday morning, they're looking at the SPC outlooks, and by Friday morning, they need to see: For Saturday Coverage: Need to see a Moderate Risk with at least a 15% tornado risk for Saturday. For Sunday Coverage: Need to see at least an Enhanced Risk with text in the SPC discussion to indicate that a tornado outbreak is likely for Sunday (since a Day 3 Moderate Risk is rare). Sometimes they'll extend coverage for slightly lower criteria, but this seems to be the general threshold they follow. It results in a lot of general Enhanced Risk weekend threats being totally ignored. In a different community, I coined the phrase "Weather Doesn't Happen On Weekends" in reference to TWC earlier in the 2010s to mock this bizarre phenomenon that staffing/personnel/scheduling decisions are only made up until Friday, and if the atmosphere throws a curveball in the middle of the weekend, and weather turns out to be much worse than expected, TWC simply would not cover it because the scheduling decisions are made in advance. It's a shame that Fox Weather has basically adopted this same policy as well.

On Balance w/Vittert debuted from Washington DC tonight, but I'm not surprised... tonight's show was done from a flashcam setup. I'm thinking we won't see the actual new DC studio until the 24th when The Hill debuts.

By the way, for anyone that didn't watch the above video, Vittert confirmed that April 24th is the day that NewsNation goes to a 24-hour cable news format Monday-Friday.

Has it been said what facility NewsNation is using in DC? Is it the same facility as DC News Now?

I see that NewsNation bumped the 8pm-10pm ET (I think) portion of their normal primetime schedule tonight in favor of a NewsNation Special Report on the Trump arraignment co-hosted by Vargas, Cuomo, and Abrams all sitting together on the new set. I also saw on the program guide that they covered the arraignment live in the afternoon, but I didn't catch any of it or see who hosted.

I just noticed that the overnight infomercials and religious programming are gone Monday-Friday, in favor of more reruns of their primetime shows. Not sure how long that's been the case, but I guess that's one step in the direction of the 24/5 schedule they plan on launching by the end of April (maybe on the 24th when The Hill launches).

Wait, so the control room in view wasn't just an image on a video wall? It's real?

Thanks for the pics. I kinda forgot this launch was happening today. I also kinda forgot that the new studio was going to debut. At least the studio is on-brand and doesn't feel like a small shoebox anymore.

Fox Weather is not even covering the severe weather outbreak that's happening right now in Texas. TWC at least is staying fully live from 6pm-10pm ET, but Fox Weather isn't even running automated weather maps or breaking in to cover the severe weather. They are staying with regularly-scheduled long form. Shameful.