MidwestTV

On 12/10/2019 at 1:44 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Any way a station can cut a $50K - $85K in contract fees, they will. This is what has happened a several stations. They are dropping our VOs. TEGNA has pushed it and so has Scripps, here, it seems. For example, KUSA no longer has an imaging voice.

If implemented properly going voice-less can work quite well. WHAS is a good example of this.

On 12/11/2019 at 3:34 PM, TheRob said:

KSHB'S Christa Dubill is leaving at the end of the year.

 

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/41-action-news-anchor-christa-dubill-to-depart-station

She was one of the longer-tenured ones there. It's unfortunate, but I can't help but wonder if she felt pressured to go. She got a somewhat bad look after the Lisa Benson debacle.

Some of you are getting way too emotionally involved in this.

4 hours ago, TheRyan said:

As far as WATN goes, it's not really like getting bought by Tegna could make things much worse.  But stations like KFSM have a lot to lose by being under Tegna ownership.  For example, KFSM has been a reliable news station for years in NW Arkansas.  Now, Tegna might change that. 

 

And as for WNEP, Tegna would be incredibly foolish if they dumped MCTYW as their theme.  The viewers will not be happy if they did, and I wouldn't blame them.  It's a great theme and a great asset to the station.  At the least, I'd expect the station to get standardized with graphics.  We'll see what Tegna does about the music, but I'm not holding my breath much that Tegna makes the wise call

I simply cannot imagine MCTYW surviving, not with out stringent Tegna is on it's look.

It's a very fresh look. Parts of it give off a CNN vibe, but maybe that's because of the chrome. Large displays, sharp corners, brightly lit (although with so much blue it feels cold) with occasional round elements to change it up. It has European elements that have been given an American flare. As for the graphics. They're certainly improved. It's a flashy flat look that doesn't go overboard. It's energetic.

Am I the only one who missed Tegna buying WATN from Nexstar?

1 hour ago, C Block said:

I think it maybe wouldn't look so bad had they not picked such a dull shade of blue. Something a little brighter would probably make it look less pedestrian.

The problem with the blue is that the hues are too similar and too dark. It borderline looks grey. The full screens are the worst offender. Making the banner white would make a WORLD of difference.

2 hours ago, CLETVFan said:

(Cross-posted from "The '3' Thread" in Graphics)

 

It appears that the new look, logo, format, and graphics are only working for WKYC at 11pm (a.k.a. "What's Next").  They have cake to prove it!

 

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2019/12/2/cleveland-cake-wars

 

The 6pm, morning, and Noon programs are not doing as great as they should be. 

 

• "What Matters Most" is 3rd at 6pm (my guess is WJW is 1st with WEWS at 2nd) 
• "Go!" is tied for 2nd/3rd in the morning (likely with WEWS since WJW is 1st, though WOIO is touting in promos that they are growing in the AM ratings-wise, so they might be taking away WKYC's viewership) 
• "Lunch Break" is 4th at Noon (the other three, including WOIO, are doing better in that slot!)

 

I think the new "3News" is struggling a bit with only the 11pm show a success.

Who decorated that WKYC cake? A 3 year old?

4 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This is 2019.   If it takes THAT long to render out a single animation, they're doing it wrong. 

 

Scripps really needs to reinvest in the back end of their stations, both equipment and people to make a graphic package that actually works for a group their size. 

Methinks Scripps might have realized they weren't equipped to tackle a project of this size on their own (but that's assuming everything discussed here is true).

On 11/28/2019 at 11:45 AM, KCActionNews said:

Word is that the rollout is a mess. A graphics change was supposed to happen by late summer and there is only one small market going into December. Look for the next targets to either be more small markets so they can say they have launched on a higher number of stations or a launch of Florida markets. They seem to like to work the florida stations together.  I wonder if there will be fallout at the graphics hub after this?

I’m still not warming up to it. Going flat and simple was the trend 3-4 years ago. They are late to that party. Just putting a station logo in background is amateur. Someone else on here summed it up best, it looks like a PowerPoint presentation page was put on TV.  I was really hoping Scripps would come out of the gate with a look that would set them apart and have some artistic elements to make you notice. This is so bland. Maybe at least some texture or shades of blue so something stands out. An accent color? But not gold lol 

Didn't someone say the corporate creative dude was recently fired or on his way out? Or that someone was pushing it out when it wasn't ready? What I'm taking away from this is Scripps was in over their heads trying to do this themselves and didn't have the talent or experience necessary to make something memorable. They got what they paid (or rather, didn't pay) for. Lesson learned.

20 hours ago, Weeters said:

 

Scripps' hub was stronger when it was just the original stations. They've spread themselves too thin with all the acquisitions, and it shows.

 

I'm sure one reason they chose to go with a basic design was the long render times they had with the Renderon package. It would take them hours to render one 5 second animation. That might work when you have 12 stations, but when you have 60 of them, that doesn't scale well. If they were sticking with the Renderon package, it might literally take weeks of nonstop rendering to do all the station-specific graphics (opens, weather opens, etc) for the 8 Tribune stations they just picked up.

 

This package was designed to scale quickly. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of this package (such as the interstitial graphics) is built in Viz (and/or Chyron because apparently that's sticking around now) and deploying it only involves swapping out a few layers in After Effects for opens. These opens would take a few minutes to render on a low-end PC.

 

That's really another reason 3D is falling out of favor. It's tens of thousands of dollars of additional expenses when you factor in the need for expensive software licenses and render clusters, for what? Some shiny graphics that have fallen out of favor?

 

Which is another thing that makes me laugh. RederOn look was fantastic, but too time consuming? Ok, go back to RenderOn and ask them to make something else, but simplify it and reduce render times while still looking well thought out and inspired.

WAVE is what I'd envision a Tegna V3 or Scripps V3 update would have looked like. The L3s are very reminiscent of Tegna.

Something that might help is if the L3 text was bold (like the temperature) instead of narrow. It's a big bar with relatively tiny text. Or, design the L3 similar to the 'coming up' box, which is two different shades of blue and layered. That makes a huge difference.

I also hope the lack of music underneath the 'breaking news' slate was accidental and not intentional. It loses all sense of urgency.

Watching WTXL a few things I notice:

1) The L3's animate slowly. Almost too slow. Maybe that's the point to draw your attention to it, but it takes its sweet time.

2) The music is incredibly chill and simple. Utilizes a lot of chimes and simple signatures. It's reminiscent of the Weather Channel. Certainly not music that would work well in fast-paced markets.

3) Weather graphics, I think, are an improvement. The problem is none of the icons animate.

4) Full screen slate is literally a slate. Zero movement. Upper banner too similarly matches the background, so it doesn't catch the eye. It should be white.

5) The biggest problem this package has is a lack of movement. Everything is very stagnant. Only the stingers and L3 seem to have some semblance of movement. I can't fathom Scripps spent months and months of designing stagnant slates.

Everyone here is complaining about how awful this looks, but I bet if this had debuted in Europe it'd be hailed as revolutionary.

1 minute ago, Info Junkie said:

WAAAAAAYYYYYY too flat. Not Tegna flat but still.

What? There's more depth here than just about anything Tegna has. At least it utilizes shadows.

16 hours ago, KCActionNews said:

The rollout is such a mess with miscommunication. The person in charge is so desperate to have a station on before the end of the year that they had to scrap plans and launch first with Tallahassee because they use such a low number of graphics.  This is so unlike the Scripps of just a couple years ago. Sad.

Sounds more like someone is just antsy to get the look rolled out.

On 11/13/2019 at 10:19 AM, mountainave said:

“As we come on the air tonight...”

"Right here tonight when we come back..."

On 11/12/2019 at 1:08 PM, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

Out of curiosity do we know why it's taking so long for WTHR and WBNS to be "Tegna-fied"?? I know when they acquired KFMB it didn't take 4 months... I'm not expecting the newly acquired properties to get it for some time....

As mentioned elsewhere, there are some stations that still have the look of their previous ownership and have been owned by a new company for over 1 or 2 years. I don't know what KFMB's situation was, but it's possible they already had infrastructure in place to handle the Tegna look. If WTHR and WBNS don't, that will take time. As also mentioned, changing the artistic on air look isn't always the highest priority when a new owner takes over. There's an even smaller chance that 'THR and 'BNS somehow convinced Tegna to keep their look.

38 minutes ago, 24994J said:

It's this year's image branding. It's not a new logo replacing anything.

Which is almost surprising to me. If Fox was going to completely overhaul their look, this would be the logo to do it.

On 11/10/2019 at 5:37 PM, 24994J said:

 

Content is key, of course, but THIS ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE. Nice nod by TEGNA and station leadership, for once.

I've watched a little bit of it. It's higher energy, tries to feature 3 live reporters (studio or field), a review of the day's top stories (called "The Rewind"), and live teases in the A block of what's coming up "In the Next 5 Minutes" before getting back to the news. Set is lit darker and they make better use of the V1 set-in-a-box 5x1 monitor array. Sounds like some different cuts of C-Clarity too.

On 11/10/2019 at 6:53 PM, DirtyHarry said:

C-Clarity

Which begs to the question to me, has C-Clairty secretly been updated, or am I just hearing cuts that weren't being used before?

WHAS has relaunched their 11pm as "NightTeam." It's a return to the name - it was popular in the 80s and 90s. NightTeam replaces 11 at 11.

On 10/30/2019 at 4:59 PM, KevCor said:

"Wake Up [Insert Region]" is the TEGNA name for all of their new revamped morning shows. Wake Up West Texas - KIDY/KXVA; Wake Up Washington (now Get Up DC)- WUSA; WHAS11 Wake Up -- all TEGNA creations, with the same (general) graphics created by TEGNA creative.

Do they all use the WHAS Wake Up graphics and music?

On 10/23/2019 at 2:29 PM, oknewsguy said:

Tegna's trend of rebranding morning newscasts continues.

 

KTHV in Little Rock is going to drop "THV11 This Morning" in favor of a new newscast title called... "Wake Up Central". It'll begin next Tuesday (10/29)

Looks like they're taking a page from WHAS whose morning show is also called "Wake Up." Though I'm perplexed by the "Central." Central because they're in central Arkansas? Central portion of the country (except not really)? I'll be curious to see if they use the WHAS Wake Up graphics (they had a special package made just for the morning show). Unfortunately, there isn't anything on youtube. That's unfortunate because WHAS put together an incredibly unique promo for the show that THV tried to mimic and did so VERY poorly.

On 10/18/2019 at 2:45 AM, rkolsen said:

Well with Jeff they have a full summers worth on Big Brother.  IIRC he didn’t do or say anything too outrageous a lot of his time was taken with his showmance Jordan who he married. However I don’t think he rocked the boat as he was voted “America’s Favorite” fan boat.  I’m sure if someone went to JokersUpdates they could find something innocuous and make it something. 

Is the show even live? ACTUALLY live?

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