MorningNews

NBC announces Tom Llamas as Lester’s replacement. They deserve to fall to #3 lol, that guy is so bad.

Have they been presenting weather in front of the video wall screen all week like Dani is doing on the 10am show? I can’t remember seeing Lee in front of it. KTRK does that as well and I’m a big fan of that look vs the traditional green screen.

My comments weren’t necessarily about his bias (although it’s very apparent) as much as they were about his delivery of off scripted remarks. Again, doesn’t matter what your experience is if you struggle to deliver a cohesive sentence when going off script. Liz Cho, David Navarro, Sade, Joe Torres, Mike Marza, etc. all manage to do the happy talk just fine and in a cohesive way that doesn’t leave this viewer somewhat uncertain of what the point is they were trying to make.

I haven’t seen the Strahan news confirmed anywhere else but if it’s happening I’d like to see them incorporate Will Reeve as a more permanent fixture on the program.

The issue isn’t ad-libbing in general as much as it is how poor he is at doing it. Any anchor, no matter their experience, will not present well when they stumble all over their unscripted commentary on stories. At times, he’s much closer to Dari Alexander than either of those anchors.

It can’t come soon enough. For the life of me I don’t understand why he insists on ad-libbing as often as he does and making a fool of himself. Just read the damn prompter.

I’m pretty meh on Tom Llamas being the replacement if they decide on him. He’s underwhelming.

Joy Reid and Wagner’s shows are easily the weakest parts of their primetime lineup so I like this move. The Weekend is surprisingly pretty good, it’ll be interesting to see if it can translate to 7pm.

Can’t tell if it’s my audio but there’s a massive echo with the anchors microphone (not noticeable with Jeff Smith) which is part of the beauty of starting on weekend evenings to work out the kinks.

It’s going to be odd walking by and not seeing channel 7 and ABC News on that corner of the UWS. What becomes of Peter Jennings Way?

Their current studio and the one before it were both awful. Extremely bad for the #1 station in the country! Obviously we’ll see how it looks in action on Saturday but these previews are extremely promising.

Never thought I’d be happy with a WABC set but this looks incredible. That circle 7 logo from above, nice touch. LA, Houston and Philly have the best looks to me but this is about to give them a real run for their money. Can’t wait to see it on air.

I get that sentiment and agree with it but it’s probably unlikely that viewers determine who they watch based off of set design.

I admittedly hadn’t seen the report so the post was the only context I was going off of. Again, I think the approach of not regurgitating every element of the last 12-24 hours is admirable.

That does seems particularly egregious. However I like them starting with the flu, this season has been pretty bad despite the lack of urgent news coverage around it.

In typical CBS News fashion, they make one big step forward and then two steps backwards. Why the inconsistency between the weekday and weekend?

Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin anchored a Special Report at 6-6:15am ET.

Lester Holt is on NBC now with a special report. WCBS’ Kristine Johnson was anchoring CBS coverage (on streaming at least).

Not super shocking when watching the broadcast. The set is so bareboned but I think that’s one of the strengths. I haven’t watched WNT in years but isn’t their set also just a desk and a massive video wall?

I’m late to watching the full broadcast but I echo everything that’s been said here. This is really impressively done and one of the best iterations of CBSEN that they’ve created since before Katie Couric’s time. The clean visual look, the depth of the reports and the pacing was really a 10/10. And once again, that 1987 theme is a classic. Just really well done. I haven’t said that about CBS News in a very long time.

Off the bat they win some goodwill points for bringing back the ‘87 theme.

I was under the impression that Maurice and John were doing split anchor duty. Are they set co-anchor together daily?

I know WFLD has struggled but I’d be entirely surprised if WBBM has made any gains. Seems like those two were in the race towards the bottom for much of the 2010s through today.

Seeing Joe and Michelle together is always nice.

Wow, time flies. Completely forgot about that one when I wrote this. Definitely ranks as the worst.