Spring Rubber

The same week that WLS modified their on-air look, WMAQ also made one slight change by eliminating the rotating weather info below the current time and temp. The time and temp are now centered in that region instead of being near the top. I'm pretty sure WMAQ made this change on Monday.

Was not aware that she even started her job at WMAQ.

They went with Tahman Bradley yesterday and Sean Lewis today. Tahman is out in the field doing reporting today.

Rich King is back in studio tonight to send Bob off, and now for the history montage of Bob's career, narrated by Jackie.

I'm still going with Tahman Bradley. If it's not, I'll be surprised. Does anybody think they might stick with Jackie solo until she retires, and then they'd replace her with one or two other anchors? In my opinion, this would be a dangerous move, since they're lacking in ratings already; dropping down to a solo anchor format just seems to me like conceding to smaller viewership numbers and accepting that the operation is getting smaller and that nobody's really watching.

Was their morning skyline graphic actually a sunset? *gasp* Maybe they heard us!

The fact that I'm up right now...this is why I never remember the weekend morning news! I should set my DVR now that I'm thinking about it.

Did anybody catch the expanded morning news today? I forgot all about it.

I bet they wish they wouldn't have let all of those extra Cubs games go to WLS.

Tahman Bradley has been the primary fill-in anchor for Bob these last few months. Seeing as Jackie always used to anchor solo when Bob was off, but they recently started bringing in Tahman, I got the feeling that Tahman was being groomed for the permanent role.

Tell her I'll DVR it

Oh, Susan alternated with Michelle? Shows how often I've watched weekend mornings...

Who's doing weekend mornings now? Is it Michelle solo? I didn't wake up early enough to find out.

and on an unrelated note, I can't believe how much non-HD video WMAQ still uses. What really surprises me is that the in-house graphics like the NBC 5 Storm Team full-screen graphic at the end of the weather segment and the NBC 5 News Today full-screen promo that airs at the end of the 10pm news are both in SD, and both graphics look really terrible on an HD TV. You wouldn't expect this from a station that's battling for the #1 spot in the market, especially when WLS and WGN have ALL of their assets in HD.

Wait, what are you predicting is going to happen to Ravi? Did I miss an announcement of him leaving or something?

I always thought he grew the beard after he knew he wasn't getting the job. Maybe I'm mistaken...

WMAQ's trend of dragging in meteorologists who are normally off continues. It's tag-team coverage with Andy Avalos and Pete Sack on a Saturday night! (Alicia is off tonight.)

I saw WBBM's newscast for the first time in ages a few nights ago. It looks like they've finally decided to replace the burned-out lights...compared to a few years ago when it looked like they were just gonna let the set fall apart. I guess it's still a nice set, but it's bizarre that it's spent like 6 years being used in this unintended format compared to the, what, 5 months under Ahern where the set was used according to its original design. Is there still talk of them ever moving out of that streetside studio, or is that talk dead in the water?

I think Phil and Larry have handled it well enough on their own.

They also dragged Byron in, too. None of the other stations dragged their weekday meteorologists into the mix; just WMAQ.

Here I was thinking that a thicker font would be better...

For the morning updates during the Today show, they use the evening music for the opens and the morning music for the closes. What music is being used for the normal morning opens?

Yeah, looks like Bryon had planned time off. He's been gone since Tuesday.

WMAQ outlasted everyone with the severe weather coverage, staying on the air until 12:10 A.M. They were in a shootout with WLS for who would end first, with WLS wrapping up 5 minutes earlier at 12:05 A.M. WGN wrapped up at 11 P.M. WFLD wrapped up at 10:45-ish WBBM ended at the usual 10:34 P.M. because they needed time to re-air the entire CBS primetime lineup with the season premiere of Big Brother. WMAQ was a little short-handed tonight with no Byron Miranda, no Alicia Roman, and no Rob Stafford. They had Dick and Allison anchoring, with Brant and Pete doing the weather. Since Byron was off today, they had Trina Orlando on the road in Storm Chaser 5. I was a little disappointed to see no Byron today. I hope this was just scheduled time off rather than a sign of things to come. I enjoy his style; in fact, seeing him on the 11 A.M. news while at work is a highlight of my day.

WGN waited for Rich to retire to bring back the talent opens. They just aired a brand new 10pm talent open with Lauren Magiera. Did the 10pm ever even have a talent open since day one? I never remember seeing them.