Spring Rubber

ABC 7 just had a huge automation fail. It started with lower thirds popping up over the wrong videos, but when it switched to a single shot of Karen in the studio, the camera tried to back up to show an OTS graphic on the video board, and the camera hit something and started shaking. It stayed steady for a second, but then the camera hit something again and violently turned wide left toward the empty seat at the desk (Ravi is off tonight). The control room cut hard to the b-roll for the story, which again had an incorrect lower third. Karen broke down and started laughing at the hilarity of the dumpster fire of technical fails taking place. They then went to a weather update from Phil, but they had no camera available to show Phil. They just put Phil's lower third on top of the full-screen weather graphics, and Phil did not make an appearance on camera the entire time. Once they went back to Karen, she read the lead-in to a prerecorded story, and when she finished reading, sure enough, the recorded video could not be played, so she just sat there in silence for a bit while trying to find the correct paper script on the desk so that she could narrate the story herself. As soon as she started narrating the story, the pre-recorded story abruptly kicked in and cut her off. Things seem to have stabilized after that segment. I think we're good now.

Sean Lewis was on tonight instead of Tahman. I wonder if we'll see Tahman tomorrow.

The double white bar just looks wrong.

I nominate Anthony Ponce.

I didn't see the 5pm newscast, but it's Larry doing the 10pm tonight. EDIT: Karen Jordan is off tonight and will be filling in for Tanja Babich on the morning news tomorrow, which will be beginning at 4AM to compete with the others on winter storm coverage.

Looks like Larry Mowry is off this weekend. Phil is in the studio with Mark McGinnis reporting on the roads.

I'm not a fan of the bug position. Maybe I'll warm up to it, but right now, it feels awkward. It's also silly how close the radar is zoomed in at each location. You can't really glean much information by the super-zoomed radar.

Looks like we've seen the last of the late night WGN News after 9pm sporting events. The Bulls have a 9pm game on Tuesday, and they'll be doing the newscast at 8pm, with no news following the game. I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise, as this is what WGN would do in the past on Saturdays when there was no CW programming to get in the way.

Was it Stacey solo this weekend in the mornings?

The weather info is back below the time and temp tonight on the weekend 5pm.

I want to say Marion was out at 11am yesterday, as well. IIRC, Lauren Petty or Michelle Relerford was in for her. That's 4 different female anchors across 5 different newscasts.

I don't like the transparency in the circle 7. Looks dingy.

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.