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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/

Yesterday, The graphics during the headlines trail has a thing... they say "SHOW TITLE" on the 5 pm news was very annoying. These graphic editors was so shocking....

Lauren Stauffer will be promoted as Managing Editor for channel 5's newscasts effective March 11. She is replacing Richard Maginn of which he will step down on March 10. Stauffer was working as the EP at WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington D.C. since 2013. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/02/01/robservations-bobby-moynihan-wont-live-saturday-night/

Mike Lorber and his Sky 5 helicopter has been grounded since last month after its partner USTN shuts down in November. the station has announced that they finalized an new agreement with its new partner Total Traffic and Weather Network once Mike and his helicopter will return. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/01/25/robservations-cbs-2-alums-sudberry-baskerville-team-podcast/

David Parrish was promoted as channel 5's content producer after he resigned from WBBM-TV when he was working as the EP of the station's 10pm newscast for 15 years. https://www.robertfeder.com/2019/01/11/robservations-wttw-air-disco-king-skokie-tonight/

Have you watching the 2019 edition of "New Year's Eve Live in Chicago" 3 days ago? the full fireworks show and countdown was incredible unlike the 2018 edition which has been criticized for showing the final 30 seconds of the countdown coming back from the commercial. Some of the station's personalities Marion Brooks and Siafa Lewis was in the Hilton Chicago, while Chris Hush was at the Drake. Zoraida Sambolin, Rob Stafford and Allison Rosati had also made cameos via pre-recorded greetings along with national NBC News personalities including Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Al Roker, Kathie Lee Gifford and Lester Holt.

BIG NEWS! Katie Kim recently posted on Instagram that they will except the first baby in June of next year. https://www.instagram.com/p/BrsslAmHNKD/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

the station has announced that "New Year's Eve Live in Chicago" will returned for the 2019 edition. Marion Brooks, Chris Hush and Siafa Lewis are among of the confirmed hosts for the event, with KISS FM's Fred, Big 10's Ally Strum and former "Windy City Live" contributor Ji Suk Yi serves as co-hosts which is will be airing 2 weeks from this Monday. In other news, congratulations to meteorologist Kalee Dionne and her husband Johnathan Pair on adopting her daughter Mila Pair yesterday. Kalee was missing in action from the news desk from several weeks now. https://www.robertfeder.com/2018/12/19/robservations-countdown-shows-battle-new-years-eve-viewers/

This year's News 4 Holiday Sing-Along was recently posted on the station's web site and Youtube page yesterday. "Deck the Halls" is this year's song. Unlike the previous sing-along promos, the promo made a cameo appearance from The Grinch and his puppy sidekick Max from the animated film of same name, which is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch and Frank Welker and it is animated by their sister animation studio Illumination Mac Guff in France using Autodesk Maya. The 2016 Holiday sing-along has using the characters from another Illumination film, "Sing" had also made cameos in the promo.