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WNBC once again placed the ad in this year's film guide for that year's Hamptons International Film Festival. They reuse last year's ad with David and Natalie, in which the former replacing Stefan Holt in the 4 and 11PM newscast one year ago. they also not mentioned the reintroduced 7PM newscast when the two are co-anchors.

A big trade is coming to channel 5. Last May, Assistant ND Tracy Davis has been traded to WVIT and later appointing it as VP of News in exchange for Akemi Harrison, which began their work duties beginning next month. https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/07/06/nbc-5-taps-assistant-news-director-connecticut-station/

The station had new pictures of the 10pm team as seen in this year's program book of last night's UNCF "A Mind is..." gala. Stefan, Allison, Brant and Siafa are following the social distancing protocols in the photo, due to the COVID pandemic.

NBC Sports Chicago head Kevin Cross to take over as President of Channel 5 and the Telemundo sister station. Kevin is the second black president to take helm of channel 5 for the first time in two decades since Lyle Banks taking the helm in 1995 until he resigned in 1998 because of the Jerry Springer fiasco at the station. https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/04/20/nbc-sports-chicago-boss-kevin-cross-head-nbc-5-telemundo-chicago/

Another station employee is retiring. Randy King to retire after 7 years as VP of Technology and Operations in June. https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/03/26/robservations-ex-anchor-urges-lawmakers-protect-local-news/

Station boss David Doebler to step down and retiring in June. No word on the replacement for Doebler as the president of the station. https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/03/09/nbc-5-boss-david-doebler-retire/

Earlier tonight, they ditching "Nightly News" for a half hour extension of the 6:00 pm newscast for some reasons. Any thoughts on this situations?

Last night, "New Year's Eve in Chicago" has shifted to the pre-recorded format due to the COVID-19 pandemic that is cancelling all of Chicago's NYE fireworks celebrations. During the special, they airing a flashback of last year's live event. Big key moments of the event: * Planet Fitness returns as sponsor for the second year, which like did to last year; no mentions related to this throughout the special, in fact, the company had close all of its clubs during the start of the pandemic, but they reopened its clubs during the summer when some its lockdowns had been eased in most of its markets. * The show opened with the segment on its past news stories of the year * Carlson Kressley did an interview using video conferencing * The famous quiz segment of "Chicago Today", "What the EL Did You Like" has the frontliners edition exclusively for the special * Towards the end of the countdown, Chrissty Meltz performs "Talking to God", and then following the countdown, Chicago Children's Choir performing "Auld Lang Syne" * In addition to the frontliners featured on the special, Most of the celebrities are also made cameos including Today Show's Al Roker, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, Kelly Clarkson from "The Kelly Clarkson Show" (also from "The Voice"), Carson Daly, Gwen Steffani, Blake Shelton and John Legend from "The Voice", Patrick Williams from the Chicago Bulls, Dan Aykroyd, Common, Amanda Freitag, Jenifer Lewis, Benny the Bull, Staley Da Bear and even Channel 5's own Marion Brooks, Stefan Holt, Siafa Lewis, Alex Maragos and Allison Rosati. * During the credits, a notice regarding both Jewel-Osco and Abt Electronics receiving a prize consideration and promotional assistance for the quiz segment * When the special ended at 12:05 a.m., a new episode of "All Access" is filling the time gap until the start of "The Tonight Show". Speaking of last night, the Olympic bug will expect to return later beginning with the morning newscast. It will used for the entire year in anticipation for the now-postponed 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, and for the next year's 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.

This year, WNBC is doing the holiday sing along, but this time will be all virtual and socially distant due to the COVID pandemic. it will be for the first time that the holiday sing along promo will be not to be filmed in the Rockefeller Plaza Christmas Tree unlike in the previous years, the last Holiday Sing Along filmed next to the tree was in 2018, it is to tie-in with the movie "The Grinch". Their song picked by the station for this year is "Frosty the Snowman". Celebrity cameos also made it in the promo including Kelly Clarkson from "The Kelly Clarkson Show" (which is produced and distributed by WNBC's corporate sister NBCU Syndication Studios) and the team from "The Today Show". Chuck Scarborough ends the promo with the words "Happy Holidays from NBC 4 New York (and Telemundo 47)."

Allison Rosati has been missing from the anchor desk for 1 and a half month due to surgery. She will be return on October 5. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/allison-rosati-returns-to-anchor-desk-next-week-after-surgery/2346938/

Aside from the official ad reveal of the new anchor team (The first All-Catholic anchor team at WNBC) for this year's Hamptons International Film Festival Film Guide, Here's the other ads that the station created for the film guide (but with on-air talent only): The Today in New York team (Kerry Barrett, Chris Cimino, Darlene Rodriguez, Michael Gargiulo and Lauren Scala) from 2015: The News 4 at 4PM team (Stefan Holt, Natalie and Dave Price) from 2016:

It looks like a unfinshed work, but due to COVID, the station's creative services team did this with shots of the anchors were photographed by Jaime Khan, whom is previously involving shot photographs of the station's personalities. They did not use the "Look N" graphics!

The ad promoting the new anchor pairing of David and Natalie was first officially revealed by the station in this year's film guide of Hamptons International Film Festival of which the station is a proud supporter. Look at page 52 of the guide promoting the new tandem. https://www.easthamptonstar.com/PDFs/HIFF_Cat_2020-Updated-Sept16.pdf

As seen in the video uploaded by the station on their Youtube page, The station is having some changes to the bug by restoring the Olympic bug for the first time since April, but with the Gold color in the Olympic logo for the first time since 2018, rather than white. In addition, the time and temperature in the bug is on the top, and the ticker in the morning newscast is removed, following all other newscasts removing the mentions of the station's social media pages, official app and website on the bug in February.

Acoording to Robert Feder, Channel 5 main anchors Rob Stafford and Allison Rosati will now doing stay-at-home anchor rotations starting today. Just like in case of Brant Miller is doing the weather at home. https://www.robertfeder.com/2020/04/06/robservations-nbc-5-alternates-keeping-news-anchors-stafford-rosati-home/

Channel 5 still using the Olympic version of the bug as of today, citing the postponement of the Summer Games to 2021. Could the station will revert to the normal bug as like did to syndicated programming admit the delay of the games to next year?

The mentions of the station's social media pages, official app and website had been removed from the bug on all of the newscasts this week. Morning newscast will continued to use the ticker.

Here's some of the two things what happened in just 24 hours at channel 5: Last night, the 3rd edition of "New Year's Eve Live in Chicago" was a success, but they have some great moments during the broadcast: * The opening sequence had the hosts arriving from the limo before heading to the live shot at The Hilton Chicago. * Following Chris Hush's "Decade Quiz" live portion from The Drake, There's a minor technical problem while they sending to Jen DeSalvo from the Crystal Gardens in Navy Pier. * There's plenty of Celebrity cameos during the broadcast, including musicians Black Eyed Peas and Little Big Town, the casts from NBC's "Chicago Med", "Chicago P.D." and "Making It", Al Roker, Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie from "The Today Show", and chef Fabio Viviani. Last year's edition had numerous cameos aside from "The Today Show" team and the cast from "Chicago P.D." and "Chicago Med", including musicians Bazzi, Alessia Cara, and Bebe Rexha, the Chicago Blackhawks, Lester Holt from "NBC Nightly News", David Eigenberg from "Chicago Fire", and channel 5's very own Rob Stafford, Allison Rosati and Zoraida Sambolin. * The broadcast had product placement, particularly from the makers of B1 Party Patches during some segments, and throughout the broadcast, the logo of Planet Fitness, is shown. Planet Fitness, famous for its "Judgement Free Zone" trademark is a presenting sponsor of this year's edition of "NYELIC", but there is no segments and references related to the club throughout the show. Last year's broadcast had 1 minute advertorials on behalf of the city's tourism organization Choose Chicago and radio station 103.5 KISS FM. * There is no bug throughout the show. * During the credits, the names of Joseph Schiltz and Jill Fields was added, the former was appointed as VP of creative services in October following the departure of its longtime creative head Dianne Haines, who went on to become the GM of their sister station in Hartford, while the latter is appointed as the station's VP of sales after they merged with the VP of sales at sister RSN NBC Sports Chicago in November following the departure of Brandin Stewart who later become the president of the CBS-owned station in Philadelphia in August. meanwhile, the mention of the station's social media accounts was added to the copyright stamp unlike at the end of the station's newscasts, but the station still not mentioning of the Snapchat and YouTube pages on copyright tag as well. Also beginning today with the morning newscast, the station's standard bug was recently switch to the Olympic variation of the station's bug, with the Olympic rings in the logo is now white, rather than gold. The network itself had also switched to the Olympic bug beginning with the Rose Parade coverage. All of which is just in time for the Summer Olympics in July.

WMAQ has reused the last year's holiday promo, but with the fonting, new faces and of course, they remove the former staffers. Here's the example from Alex Maragos' Facebook page.

Channel 4 has not doing this year's Holiday Sing Along for the first time in 5 years. the most recent cancellation of the Holiday Sing Along promo taping was in 2014, due to bad weather caused by snow. Instead, the station has recycled last year's promo featuring "Deck the Halls", which will be the last NBC4 Holiday Sing Along promo for this decade, but with some alternations including the removal of "The Grinch" animated character, and the removal of Jummy Olabanji, Wale Aliyu and even Chris Cimino, all of which was been released by the station throughout this year, but also added with the Christmas Card-Inspired opening/closing animation for the first time since 2017. newcomers Kay Angrum, Maria LaRosa, Gilma Avalos, Anajali Hemphill, Myles Miller, and Matt Brickman did not included in this year's promo for some reasons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wXfjtX4dYs

Have you know that the MAQ's website has a new upgrade recently? You see, the new GUIs for the website was the last in the NBC station group to have a upgrade. meanwhile, the mobile app has not yet upgraded to this new look.

Susan Carlson signed off after six years of serving it as a weekend morning co-anchor yesterday. She will continue to doing general reporting Monday-Wednesday. Meanwhile, Katie Kim will continue as a weekend morning anchor but with the set of rotating anchors. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/12/02/robservations-roeper-conn-host-best-movies-decade-podcast/

Jill Fields was appointed as VP of ad sales for channel 5 & sister Telemundo station, as well as NBC Sports Chicago. https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2019/11/22/nbcuniversal-taps-jill-fields-for-expanded-ad.html

Sabrina Santucci has recently quit the station after four years as per diem reporter and multimedia journalist last Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, Alicia Roman joins Andy Avalos in the weather desk during the morning newscast, but she handle the co-duties on Wednesday to Friday. Alicia will also continue to do the weather on Weekends.