C Block

I'll park this here – some more of the Linda Kane look for KWGN from 2000 has made it to YouTube. This was also shortly before a new news director took over who painted everything blue and wanted to make everything look as safe as everything on KUSA. Also, for you WABC fans, there's a peek at Amy Freeze in there before she hit it big.

The schedule always gets messed up everywhere around the holidays. I wouldn't put too much thought into it.

Uhhh.... Also, it's a bit weird to include your competitor's logos in a promo, even for a split second!

Again, I'm not shouting "here's the new O&O graphics package confirmed!" – I just thought this topical was interesting and worth pointing out!

Not to encourage people to take this and run a mile with it, but I did find this KCNC topical rather interesting. The graphics in this certainly match the wider CBS rebrand pretty well.

Huh, I had no idea that Chris Reed was doing this. He's also the one who has uploaded the most Denver news videos on YouTube. Spirit is probably the best of Jerome Gilmer's work. That KCNC 1997 rebranding was pretty memorable. I can't help but wonder though if management eventually thought the theme was too light. Spirit lived on in some bumps and the 4pm First News open for a while, but they switched to harder cuts starting in 1999/2000 before going mostly with XTreme in late 2001. The Denver stations had a tendency to throw away anything creative after a while and copy KUSA.

Another case of Lieberman only getting the story 30% right and then making up the rest.

Seems a little weird that they wouldn't just move Judge Judy up to 3pm and have a 4pm news instead, though Judge Judy tied KTVU for #1 yesterday at 4pm, so I guess they have their reasons.

The “new” logo is almost but not entirely indistinguishable from the old. I doubt they’ll ever get to universal adoption of the new logo. I’m in LA this week and saw some billboards with the new KABC logo, but I could only tell is was the “new” one by the absence of all the gradients.

I'm pretty sure they commissioned that look before anyone else. Here's how it looked in 1992, about a month after they moved into their current building:

That is a ripoff!

No. That’s insane.

KTVU was off the air for more than four hours because of a power outage. Power went out to the station around 5am. The station was back on the air around 9 running NewsNow with some intermittent updates from Pam at the newsroom flash cam.

I wonder how it'll ultimately look. If it'll look the same way it did for the election with all video walls, well, then what a waste. They might as well be in New Jersey if that's the case. But the windows may not be ideal either. During the original run of TRL, that second floor was divided into three studios. The TRL studio was the largest and had the best view looking to the north. After MTV cancelled TRL, and its replacement didn't catch on, Viacom renovated and leased out that space to be the second floor of the Aeropostiale store underneath. That leaves the only studio area (as far as I know) on the south side, which has a view of...well, the GMA studio. Edit: here's the press release. There's not too much more information, other than that the move is coming this fall, and the facility will be "expanded." Hopefully that means getting back that north corner if possible. https://www.viacomcbspressexpress.com/cbs-news/releases/view?id=57665

Linda Kane did great work. I think that KTLA look was inspirational for a lot of others. I liked the graphics she did for a lot of the other Tribune stations, which had a similar feel but were unique unto themselves. I see she still has a website up along with a portfolio – some of it looks like it never made air. I didn't think she did any work for KTVU, but there are what look like some concepts on there. http://www.lindakanedesign.com/broadcast Also, while I'm here, does anyone know who did the KCNC 1997 design? I always thought that was a slick one.

Why are we talking about this? The head of CBS News is stepping down, not Norah O'Donnell. There's no indication Norah is going anywhere. Is it a possibility? Sure. But it's not a guarantee. Whoever takes over the news department will certainly want to make changes, but I'm inclined to think CBS won't want to make another anchor change so soon after the last one.

I was also thinking that RiNo would be a good location. They could probably rent out a decent amount of space in any of those new buildings or under construction projects. It’s a cool neighborhood, you’d still be close to downtown, and you’d also be close to freeways, which is good for dispatching crews. If they were really worried about parking, they could maybe find some space in the Taxi Building or something else on that side of the river.

The KCNC/KOA building is definitely about a decade older than the KMGH/KLZ one. There’s a good tour of it that aired nationally on the Today show in 1959: The studio at 11th and Bannock is probably the oldest one that’s still standing. I think it was KBTV/KUSA’s original facility from the early 50s. KRMA moved into it in 1992 and moved out a few months ago.

How absurd. I’ve never been in that building, but I’ve always heard it’s pretty cramped inside. When you think about how much they’ve expanded with their national projects and KCDO, I’m sure it is getting to be pretty tight in there. I don’t see what value there would be in preserving it. It’s such a good location. A 5-10 story residential or mixed use building that takes up the full footprint of the property would be a much better outcome.

I'm not usually one to advocate for cost cutting, but....helicopters are a huge expense, and it makes a lot of sense in many ways to pool that sort of resource together. Chopper sharing has been going on now in Denver for well more than a decade. Can anyone point to a story that would have been better served with more than one chopper there? Also, is KDVR still part of the pool or what? I know they were, then they dropped out. I thought they were back in?

When did KMGH start producing 8pm news on KCDO? Also, they now do 7-9am and 1pm on KCDO?? I see there's also news at 11pm, but I'm going to guess that's a 10pm repeat. Denver is approaching LA levels in terms of how much news is available around the clock. https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/kcdo-now-local3-new-shows-entertainment-and-expanded-colorado-news-from-denver7

Becky Ditchfield has left KUSA. Ed Greene is returning as an interim freelance meteorologist: https://www.9news.com/article/about-us/team-bios/ed-greene/73-fa511cd8-f125-49cc-b341-f5caf49e8c29

Maybe they want more newsroom or sales space for social distancing purposes whenever people start coming back into the building. I know that where I am, we've also considered mothballing one of our studios and turning it into a second newsroom.

The animation does feel a little clunky, though I do appreciate that CBS is finally going for some consistency with the same logo treatment as the network identity and the use of Proxima Nova.

Viacom probably wants to make a statement about the two companies being under the same roof again and make better use of prime real estate. MTV made good use of it during the first run of TRL, but it has been pretty much vacant ever since. Getting CTM in there is probably the best chance of anyone ever using that studio space again. The recent reboot of TRL flopped pretty quickly. I'm not sure how much this plays a factor too, but I believe there are some local regulations that require property owners/tenants in Times Square to have a flashy or high profile exterior use. The MTV studio has never been all that flashy, but it was certainly high profile during TRL in attracting huge crowds. If they do move, I'd be worried that CBS would then be lured into making the same mistakes again as the Early Show in trying to emulate the trappings of their competitors. I shudder at the thought of dueling outdoor concerts. The best thing about CTM and Studio 57 at the beginning is that it was true to what CBS News does best.