Spring Rubber

Well, that's one way to make sure that the hashtag on the bug is out of the way of the weather graphics...yeah, um, no.

 

I like bobblehead Ravi!

They didn't even stick Tom out on the weather patio tonight; they stuck him all the way out in front of the WGN building. I'm sure Tom is rushing back into the building after that liveshot he just did.

Wouldn't it be even cheaper (or no difference) since they'd only have to send every cable and satellite provider one feed instead of two? Or do the networks that do letterboxed SD downcovert to 480p themselves before sending it to the cable/satellite providers on a separate feed?

WGN just announced that they're bringing in Tom Skilling to cover the winter storm (possible blizzard) tomorrow.

Kathie Lee returns to the 4th hour of Today tomorrow (1/29) after taking pretty much the whole month of January off. Let's all drink some wine!

Ummm, did they change the weather format on the Sunday 9pm show? Instead of showing the 7-Day with the rest of the weather segment as they usually do on Sunday, Mike said to stay tuned until later in the newscast for that.

 

Edit: Grrr, I lost focus and never noticed if they actually did the 7-Day at any point.

Was talking to my mother tonight. She wants to know why Tracy and "that new girl" wear nothing but skin tight dresses, often with cleavage hanging out. She asked if that's "All channel 7 is about these days?" She said she can't trust a weather forecast when the main goal seems to be about getting you to stare at their body rather than giving you an accurate forecast.

 

I told her that she might want to stick with WGN on the weekends, in that case.

Wait, what would the old news director have done if Jim Ramsey is off? I thought they sometimes used a CLTV meteorologist and sometimes (albeit rarely) called in Skilling.

 

My opinion: We all saw this day coming, even though they said it wouldn't. Mike caplan is one of the best, not only at WLS, but in Chicago (next to skilling, of course) I'm guessing he's around 50-55 years old so he doesn't have a lot of his career left. His prime is over. It would be nice to see him on WGN Midday News and giving Tom the Evening at 9pm news. I wish nothing but the best for Mike, and nothing but the worst for WLS because they had it coming when they first got rid of Sylvia Perez.

 

 

This comment plus the earlier comments about only needing one evening meteorologist brings up the point that I was thinking about last weekend: It doesn't make sense that every time Tom Skilling takes a two week vacation that Jim Ramsey should have to work 16 straight days with no time off (well this time around, Jim did 15 consecutive days and then took off the final Sunday before Tom got back, and they called in Tim McGill to fill in).

 

It just doesn't make any damn sense that at least once a year (usually twice, IIRC), Jim, at his age, should be working 16 consecutive days because the station only has two evening meteorologists.

 

Either way, I've always thought the weather center was the weakest part of the set.

 

Yeah, while it looked interesting, it clashed with everything else on the set. Also, while I get where they were going with the design, it was hard to execute in that tiny little studio they have. The camera shots would always be so tight (because of the small studio) that it didn't really look good on the air.

I thought the goal was to have Demetrius eventually take over for Skilling, especially considering that as long as Tom's health holds up, he'll probably keep doing his job until he no longer can. By that point, Demetrius should be seasoned enough to take over, especially if Tom keeps working for another 5-10 years.

 

If WFLD was my only option, I'd be on the next flight out of town.

What's next for Mike? I would think that he's gonna be a chief somewhere. It seems that Chicago is pretty saturated right now, so I assume he's gonna be moving to another market. Pretty much the only play he could have in Chicago is trying to become Steve Baskerville's eventual replacement, but I just don't see WBBM picking him up at this juncture. Oh well. I'm gonna miss you, Mike.

I'm done with ABC 7. I hate this management.

Cheryl Scott is in for Jerry on the 5pm news tonight.

Why even have an evening traffic reporter when Sarah is off? Might as well eliminate the segment instead. Heck, even when Sarah is there, they don't always have her do a traffic report; sometimes she does a feature report or something else instead, so it's not like they do traffic reporting every single night.

They got the graphics in 2003. That was the year that they got the new WGN logo, abandoning the old logo with the "9" and the "G" combined.

I could've sworn it was January 2005. I thought they tore down the old set right after the holidays and launched the new set in late January 2005.

No pics? Oh well, I'll have to wait until the morning news to see it.

 

Side note: Isn't either this month or next month the 10 year anniversary of their current set? My goodness, it's old.

It looks like Bill Ratner did the top of the hour opener, the talent rejoin, and the Weather opener, but apparently they realized last minute that they didn't have an opener voiceover for the bottom of the hour, so they had Roger Rose do that opener.

 

That's pretty disjointed: brand new newscast, and it's got two different v/os on it.

No throw to the weather segment from the desk. They made a special weather segment opener with voiceover, and Cheryl introduces the segment right out of the break.

So they begin the newscast with a "7 at 7" much like WGN Morning News's "9 at 9", just with serious stories, of course.

I just watched a Bulls game on My50 for the first time. It's so awkward seeing a Fox 32 news commercial, and then when they come back from break on the WGN-produced telecast, they immediately tell you to check out wgntv.com.

 

I still can't believe that ownership bought the rights to a sports package produced by their direct competitor.

 

Just for the sake of showing you the new version of the ticker that I referenced above:

 

They moved the bug, added their web address and shored up the sidebars so they are even now. This debuted today, it's an improvement though I don't think it's gonna sway you towards a design like that...

 

I like the creativity of embedding the time and temp into the school closing bar. That's neat.

Cheryl Scott is in for Mike Caplan today. I wonder if she'll be doing the 4 pm all week leading up to next week's 7 pm debut.