EricTheEnthusiast

10 hours ago, HSV cheesehead said:

This talk about WVUE got me curious, so I watched a newscast on their VUit page to see for myself and came across this. They haven't switched to grayone yet, but they have a different ticker that looks to be a mashup of both new and old.

They switched to that ticker within days of debuting their then-new graphics. 

Couldn't agree more with what Vlad said. It's exactly what the 10am "news" show should be, hosts are great, glad to see Sam there the whole time. Well executed by WABC.

2 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

WFSB has debuted GrayONE.

And a new studio! Two questions ...

Was GrayONE developed from WFSB's prior package? They seem so similar to me (please don't come at me too hard if I'm way off base on their similarities)

Why do some stations prefer the meteorologist in front of monitors rather than the chromakey (WFSB is doing this with their new studio)? Maybe it's me, but as a viewer I find the graphics much easier to see and read off the chromakey, and it often feels unnatural when the meteorologist has to turn fully from the camera and face the screen versus turning 90 degrees to look at a monitor.

Fox 8 (WVUE) has started using a less obtrusive version of the "Gray Ticker". I wonder if this will roll out group wide or is just a temporary thing. From my vantage point, it's much easier on the eyes.

On 4/18/2022 at 4:23 PM, Wildish said:

WVUE being such a strong market leader deserved better. This is worse than WGNO's package. Basic, Bland, Boring. Tegna looks better than this even. They should have stayed with Raycom's graphics if they couldn't do better.

I've been holding back on commenting on the new WVUE graphics since it launched just to see what improvements or modifications would be made as usually once a package hits the air you see stations make a few tweaks to better fit the product and process. However, they've been saddled with technical issues and other mistakes that continue to this day (over a month in). Does anyone know what's going on? Specifically:

- they can't get through a newscast (or usually even a segment) without a mismatch between graphics, video, and story (happens all the time during the opening teases or the coming up teases)

- they can't get through a newscast (or usually even a segment) without an audio issue (you constantly hear an anchor start talking in the distance several seconds before their mic is brought up)

- the graphics seem to fire randomly, interrupting stories or live reports

- commercials inadvertently start during newscasts, and the talent seem unaware (during the weather hit, a commercial and a half played and David Bernard was still going as if he had no idea)

- yesterday during a weather hit in the 7am hour, the screen went black for about 2 minutes and came back to Nicondra doing her weather hit unaware (seen on both YouTube TV and my OTA DVR)

Before the graphics change, WVUE was on par with some of the national outlets, mistake-free and very well-produced. Now they're lucky to go a segment without a glitch of one sort or another. I feel bad for everyone that's there, you know they don't want this. But what is going on?

I grew up on the CT shore, so our station was WTNH. I remember watching Action News 8, and this was the graphics package I remember. I still love the simplicity of the package, especially the lower thirds. 

However, in the late 90's (I believe 1997), they rebranded from WTNH Channel 8 (general) and Action News 8 (news) to a singular News Channel 8 (general and news). Supposedly, the graphics and music were all custom for them. If anyone has an info on who made the graphics, I'd love to know.

9 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

It actually debuted last night after the NASCAR race.

You are correct! I was watching the Pels game and once that was over I had enough TV. Woke up to the new graphics and assumed it started with the morning news.

In any event, from someone who is not fluent in what separates good from great from major market packages, it seems like a nice evolution for them. It's not such a huge change from the Raycom look, so there's some consistency for the market leader (I bet 90% of viewers won't even notice). However, it does feel newer and fresher.

Two questions: 1 - is that normal to show the times in 24-hour format? (i.e 04:35) 2 - are we stuck with that giant Grey news ticker on the bottom?

WVUE debuted the new graphics this morning. It’s no surprise .. we all guessed the package. Here are some screenshots. 

Last night during the news at 9 and 10 on WVUE, David Bernard had several graphics with the new look. See the attached screenshots. Seems less like a mistake and more deliberate at this point. Do we think a change is imminent? Any guesses as to when, and which package it will be?

Speaking of WVUE, very quickly during the morning news (7:50 local time) Fox8 had a weather graphic that could have been a sign of a coming change. I unfortunately couldn’t screen grab it, but here’s a pic of it. Any thoughts?

15 minutes ago, KentBrockman said:

Emmis basically gave up on the station after Katrina, and its largely why the other stations owners also gave up (hell isn't WDSU STILL in Widescreen SD?). The late Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints and a large contributor to trying to revitalize NOLA after Katrina, bought the station in 2008 and ran the station for a couple years until he sold it to Raycom. It was Benson though that turned the station around giving it the hometown focus that led to its rise in the ratings.

 

Now, NOLA is beginning to thrive again despite still dealing with issues from Katrina and Gray is in a good position with WVUE, especially given the fact Belo gave up and made massive cuts at WWL before being sold to Gannett/TEGNA, WDSU just floating along as the redheaded stepchild of Hearst, and despite Nexstar attempting to turn WGNO around, it's still not where it needs to be because Tribune ran it into the ground for decades. 

WDSU switched their news to HD around the same time as WGNO debuted its HD news and new graphics and set. I can't remember which station was first, but they were both around the same time.

Back to WVUE, does anyone know what's going on with their studio cameras, specifically the ones facing the anchors? The colors seem washed and the brightness is off. It's stark when they cut from the anchor shot to a reporter, skin tones, logos, and other elements are drastically different.

WVUE just posted a breaking news story and used an updated Gray Graphics as the image on their website. It's an AP story, so perhaps it was added by another Gray location (such as WAFB), but is that indicative of a graphics package change for 4pm?

https://www.fox8live.com/2022/01/25/man-accused-stabbing-k-9-sought-after-fathers-body-found/