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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.

Robert Feder confirmed that former Chicago Tribune employee has tapped on as VP of programming and creative services at channel 5. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/10/07/robservations-ex-tribune-exec-head-creative-services-programming-nbc-5/

Paul Deanno was signed on as the meteorologist for channel 5's 11:00 am & 4:00 pm newscasts effective October 21. Deanno was the chief meteorologist for the CBS owned station in the San Francisco Bay Area and formerly, he was a meteorologist for the sister NBC O&O in Miami. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/09/27/robservations-eve-cancellation-worldview-host-wins-studs-terkel-award/

Reporter Ash-Har Quraishi have signed on to become the national correspondent for the E.W. Scripps station group, owners of WTMJ-TV in nearby Milwaukee in which the viewers of WMAQ & WTMJ-TV are both serving in Kenosha and Racine viewing markets beginning September 16. His last report will be on the station September 15. I really missed & watching Ash-Har's fill-ins during the "The Rundown" social media stories while Kalee Dionne is not available. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/08/29/robservations-wgcis-leon-rogers-host-late-night-show-fox-32/

Last weekend, NBC News correspondent Ron Mott was filling in for Dick Johnson on the 5 & 10 pm newscasts. the ND says that there are no further appearances on the anchor desk are planned for Mott in the near future. His appearance on the 5PM newscast last Saturday had been preempted because of the golf overrun. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/08/19/robservations-columnist-mary-mitchell-celebrated-great-chicago-icon/

A few weeks ago, WMAQ had its own Youtube page. the official YT page had videos of some really interesting news stories as well as clips from the station's newscasts. What a great effort by NBC to set-up the other owned stations' official Youtube pages. https://youtube.com/channel/UCL9C44BZd_8hRa9OPMjIpMg/

It will be a possibly an potential contender to channel 7's "Windy City Live". Great question. Most NBC O&Os like in NYC, LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami, Boston and Hartford had their own lifestyle shows, meanwhile the Philadelphia station had previously have a lifestyle show. Only DC & Dallas don't have their own lifestyle shows of ours.

Former South Bend mayor and former investigative mentor at WMAQ channel 5 Pete Buttigieg is running for president in 2020. Buttigieg was called by former channel 5 reporter Renee Ferguson as a his mentor and friend. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/04/15/nbc-5-mentor-renee-ferguson-boosts-pete-buttigieg-campaign/

Part-time reporter and former anchor Art Norman has announcing his bone cancer diagnosis. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/03/13/robservations-colleagues-pulling-chicago-treasure-art-norman/

Station's VP of News Frank Whittaker was mentioned by Robert Feder in a story related to last Friday's shooting in Aurora when all television stations in the city has responded with wall-to-wall coverage: https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/02/18/robservations-amy-guth-host-daily-podcast-crains/