NBC 5 Chicago

Looks like Patrick Fazio is off the morning shift and will only be on at 11am with Marion Brooks. I haven't seen an announcement for a new morning anchor so I wonder if it's in-house musical chairs. I was really starting to like Michelle and Patrick in the morning. Patrick can be quite funny however the chemistry was a little off with Michelle. I still think Michelle is best suited for evening/10pm news. https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=491049226172733&set=a.144880187456307

They were on the temp set for 4 weeks. What I've noticed is sets in Chicago change around 10 years per station. WLS's is the oldest at 2015 however still modern. They've got a few more years on that set yet.

We've got our first Breaking News look of the desk.

Yes. The LED lights around the home base screen, desk, and behind the new monitor to the left are all orange/tan. The video screens use those images up until about 6am and they switch to the Michigan Ave cam.

https://www.facebook.com/PatrickFazioNBC5/videos/618968573186057 Here's a video of the complete set from Patrick Fazio's Facebook.

Since COVID Brant has been using the temp area upstairs and not in the studio. No idea if he will join them. I hope so. I liked how Paul uses the video screen and Stefan interacted with him there at 4pm today. There is also another video screen to the left of that curved screen. Allison showed it at 10pm today. I wonder if they only have 1 green screen now in the studio instead of the 2. It'll be interesting to see how the morning crew utilizes the set.

Since they didn't change the background screen I didn't include the anchor close up's since nothings changed there.

Definitely a nice facelift and FINALLY a new desk. I cannot tell if its a video screen one or if that NBC Chicago logo is physically on it. I don't like that they used the NBC Chicago logo . It looks blurry at times. The set is a lot brighter! I have a feeling those LED's can change colors where the brick is and around the screens. It would be nice if they could use orange for mornings. I think its a nice touch when WTVJ does it. I loved that they brought back the wide shots! Hopefully those stay across all newscasts and not just today to show it off. One thing I don't think will last long are the glass dividers between the spaces. I don't think its needed. Sure it breaks up the spaces but kind of redundant if you do a wide shot. They did some nice angles as they were going to break today. Here is how they used the set at 11am and will provide more to see how they use the set during the 4pm.

Looks like the end of the week is the debut. Michelle Relerford eluded on Facebook to Friday being the big debut. My assumption would be Thursday as they typically debut at 4pm and the morning crew gets it the next day.

I agree. I think we'll get mostly a refresh but the screens will most likely still be there since they just installed them a few months ago. I know COVID really put a squash to a lot of the wide shots and everything is in boxes. I miss those though. They gave the newscast some depth. With them having a tight space they still made it work when tossing to weather and sports at their locations. I would like to see them go back to this again. I think with the new screens though they weren't able to pull that effect off without showing their black curtains at the top and bottom of the screens. So hopefully this update will help them to achieve wide shots again. I also agree with this. In 2012 when they did the full makeover it felt very fresh and so new. New set, logo, music, and graphics. They had great promos and really made an effort. Over the years its felt stale. The set has gone through so many different upgrades but home base basically is the same except for the backgrounds screens. It's like there's been no effort or a cohesive effort. Their creative promos are gone. They don't even use a full VO anymore. Although I know that seems to be a trend nowadays. I hope they can get back to how they were in 2012. I feel they were really energized and put in so much effort to be competitive in the market.

A little set update: Marion Brooks is back from vacation this week and posted on Facebook today to look for the new set next week.

Some updated pics of the temp set. Instead of green screen when tossing from the 4pm to the 5pm today, they used a stand up area that looks like it is to the left side of the desk. I'm not certain but it looks like the desk is peaking out by Kate near the bug. I posted the other pictures of the morning team in the Chicago thread but this temp set up seems to be a little more elaborate which is nice to see.

For those wondering about the newsroom.. it has not changed since the last time the columns were painted blue and the peacock logos were added. Kye does traffic from the newsroom now. Alicia's last day was today before maternity leave and I saw this photo on Patrick Fazio's Facebook. I'm curious where they are broadcasting from. There looks to be a monitor to the right and seems to be a little more to it than the shots we've seen. Back in 2012 they were in studio 5 for a good couple of months before going back to the tower. If this is only going to be 2 weeks they cant be doing a full gut. I would imagine it would be some updates and new desk (hopefully).

Here's a few more pics I grabbed from 4pm-5pm. I was curious how they were going to handle the toss from the 4pm to 5pm. Good old green screen. Brant I've noticed since COVID has never been in studio to do weather. He's in a different location in the building. You can see near his feet here is a grey/cream colored flooring which is not the flooring in the studio. But it also looks like it's part of the graphics since he stands on it. He's the only one that has this all the other meteorologists I've seen present in the studio. Either at the green screens or the "new" corner monitor.

Very interesting. I wonder where they're at? In 2012 they still had Studio 5 so that is where they temporarily broadcasted from in 2012. I thought I saw in Kate's Facebook page that the area behind the new stand up had a new blue background behind it which it didn't have before. I'm curious if this is going to be a gut and replace or just upgrades again. If its a complete gut it seems like a waste of time to keep constantly upgrading small portions of the set each time to just completely get rid of everything. Now the most important question is.... will there be a new desk??? lol It's literally the only remaining piece from the 2012 set.

Chris Hush is moving to WTVJ-NBC 6 in Miami to be the weekend anchor and weekday reporter. Press release below.

WMAQ got rid of their weather center recently. They use it as a stand up area now. This is a direct result of the pandemic. I hate it. I miss the wide shots and tosses from weather and sports at stand up areas or the weather center. It gave the shows more depth then talking in boxes and switching graphics or using transitions.

Wow... their better option would be 8pm ET. Run their live programming through the day and then at 8pm is the rebroadcast of Pattrn then they can run their deep bench of reruns of shows. This also gives them an option if Pattrn didn't air that day due to severe weather they can run a show if severe weather isn't happening at 8pm or continue with live coverage. I actually like Pattrn. It's a really neat show and I like where they're going with it. You'll still get updates on weather across the country. The climate stories they are doing are quite interesting and informative.

Tyler Mauldin made his debut today on Storm Center. Looks like he freelances a lot at CNN/HLN and now TWC.

In Out & About it was posted that Tevin Wooten is going to NBC Boston. It explains why he hasn't been on air since the beginning of May. Now, I wonder if they'll replace him on Storm Center or just keep it Jacqui and Chris. Felicia posted on her socials that she was no longer going to be a regular on Weekend Recharge with May 21-22 being her last time as a regular on there. Curious to see if we'll see some shuffling around and if they'll hire anyone new any time soon. With the holiday weekend they've had a lot of the part time OCM's on to help fill the voids.

Explains why Tevin hasn't been on TWC since the beginning of May.

See regardless if its not dramatic as tornado coverage its still severe weather. That should ALWAYS be covered. I get your assumptions regarding the 10% and hatched tornado risk. Regardless there needs to be a better parameter for covering severe weather. If there are active tornado warnings and you're approaching going into programming hours they should pre-empt, period. That's the reason people turn to the weather channel anyways or at least used to. I know ways of getting warnings and keeping informed have changed since TWC formed but a channel devoted to weather should still be devoted to at least covering the severe cases of weather.

Looks like they've extended morning coverage to overtake the live edition of Pattrn today. There's an enhanced risk of severe weather but nothing like the past severe weather days so I'm curious why the change today. Wonder if WU will take over the 1pm hour for additional coverage and if there is extended overnight coverage or they just ended up scraping Pattrn for today.

They did break in twice so far to update the status of those storms. I don't know why they just didn't do another hour of Storm Center until things calm down then bring Carl in. Their severe weather coverage outside of their shows sucks anymore.

Don't get me started on the lights. Half the time Storm Center is blue and the other half its yellow, like today. Then we got T-Mobile for Pattrn which I feel is way overboard than the other shows. Samantha Mohr is on tonight during Storm Center. I forgot she was a fill in again. They've been going deep into the fill ins this week for coverage. Yet they had Felicia on yesterday during Pattrn but Molly at the beginning of the week. It'll be interesting to see who's going to be paired with Carl for the late night hours. But so far Mark, Jeff, Colleen, Samantha have filled in this week. Chris Bruin filled in for Alex Wallace on Monday even though Alex was there for the 40th anniversary. It's been an interesting week with the OCM's.