Jess

As much as I like the live camera feeds the NBC O&Os use, that background looks really really sharp.

Surprised they're able to get away with a flat-colored version of the ABC logo...

Plus I’m convinced that one of the mic flags is outdated - I’m positive there’s an old CBS North Carolina flag in there. still, that’s disgusting.

Vernon Odom is retiring https://6abc.com/society/vernon-odom-set-to-retire-from-6abc/4887174/

Wonderful package. Got me from the little montage of sunburst-yellow logos at the beginning. (Yay for including the iconic 1979-82 logo!) Bonus points for spotlighting the REAL stars of the format: the Eyewitness News TEAM. Roger and Bill might have been the greatest anchor team in television news history, but that cast of characters around them deserve equal points for making that newscast shine. NJ Burkett is absolutely right when he calls WABC the "New York Yankees of television news". I can't think of any other station with such a pedigree. Maybe.... MAYBE WPVI. Some of those are clearly from YouTube uploads (some of which I personally did)... but they own the footage so I can't really complain. https://abc7ny.com/community-events/eyewitness-news-anchor-roger-grimsby-profile-(1982)/4647748/ Great look at WABC's greatest-ever talent (sorry Bill Beutel).

I will chime in and note that WCAU was pretty much blown up in the past five years as well. They brought in a ton of younger talent and market newcomers. The difference is that Comcast is willing to invest in the station. Obviously the biggest sign of their investment happened this week with the big move, but they're bringing in talent left and right and for the most part keeping them. Jim Rosenfield, Jacqueline London, Keith Jones, et al have been with the station for five years at this point and all look like they're becoming station cornerstones. Plus they made smart talent moves when it counted - Vai's move from sports has turned out to be very successful, whereas the Jim Donovan experiment in mornings has been disastrous. And let's not forget Fox 29. They have their own problems, but look at the talent they have. Bob Kelly, Sue Serio, Kathy Orr, Dawn Timmeney are all homegrown, be it at Fox or outside of the station, and Lucy Noland gets significant social media exposure on my feed thanks to her animal activism. CBS 3 just does not have that. They have Ukee. That's it. If they weren't doing the weather reports on 1060 they would be even more anonymous.

Haven't really watched Fox 29/Good Day in awhile but I noticed they're now using a cut of Beyond for their breaking news stinger. Not sure when that started.

That’ll be an adjustment for WPVI. They love their Viz unit to an unhealthy degree.

Noooooooo! Seriously one of the best ever.

Natasha is certainly capable. She should have gotten the position years ago anyway.

This is something I very seldom say about anything Sinclair-related, but I am impressed. Very clean and stylish graphics. I actually get a bit of a KABC vibe from them, actually. That slogan... what the hell is that supposed to be?

Just saw a promo: Action News Mornings is going to 4AM on September 10.

Yes, but the tone has changed several times, and the newscast was technically cancelled for awhile in order to do "All That and More". It's only in the last few years that 10 has been doing very hard news at 4.

Yeah. That's the reasoning for this. Does it make sense by that reasoning? Yes. Does that mean it's a great idea? Probably not. There's something to be said for quality over quantity, and 3 isn't exactly putting out a quality product at the moment.

I do. The key is that she’s bilingual. That means she can report for both WCAU and WWSI. You beef up the reporting staff of both stations with a single hire.

Just found this classic HBO promo block. I think the “next on” bumper might be my favorite continuity announcement of all time. (Aside from some of the Kim Martin WGBS classics of course.)

Not sure if we have an International thread or not (I can’t find one) but I am on an ITV kick right now. Specifically, ITV Central. This might be one of the best station startups ever. Flashy graphics and tremendous music that build up to a crescendo at the end. I love it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfXziWcZ2P8

We got our first real look at Philly numbers in years - it's currently posted in the NYC forum - and while there's a number of interesting takes that can be derived from that the biggest takeaway is 3's numbers. To put it bluntly, they're awful. Particularly the morning hours, which are a very distant fourth compared to the other three stations (which are very competitive - FOX is just .1 behind WPVI at 6am, and WCAU is not far behind). I think you have to blow it up at this point. Change anchors, change the approach, change what needs to be changed. Mornings probably have to be fixed first - the 11pm numbers are kind of decent and short of an act of God those WPVI numbers at 5 and 6 are still going to be astronomically high. I've watched a bit of it and I have to agree - the experiment is a failure. I like some of the ideas, like Summerfest, but it makes no sense to turn the evening and late newscasts into a travelogue or an FYI Philly type show. Something needs to be done, and quick.

You're not. While I've come around somewhat on the new graphics and look I'm still convinced that the previous set was far better. I made a post about it here.

Someone posted an idea for a "sports classic video" thread on the shoutbox a few days ago. I like the idea, but I wanted to expand it a little bit. The focus of the existing classic video thread is on news and broadcast TV stations. This is, essentially, "everything else". Premium cable promos, MTV "vidchecks", sports promos and graphics, everything within reason. Obviously let's not post full game shows or compilations of production company logos. So! I'll start with three examples of the above. I had, like, five examples of premium cable promos but I ultimately went with this one. Why? I think mid-80s Movie Channel stuff is underrated. The theme music is great and the movie open is fantastic, and it's interesting to see bits of a channel that never quite found a niche. (Even a rebrand effort from the great Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman didn't really quite take off.) Here's a nice and long MTV "vidcheck" from 1982. For those who don't quite get the concept, it's sort of similar to a "scoped aircheck" of a radio station. In other words, the songs are more or less removed (well, most of them - there's enough to let you know what the song is), but everything else isn't. So this is the VJ banter, commercials, and promos from that era. It's interesting to note how tame it is in comparison to how MTV was later in the decade. The formatics are very, very similar to radio. Lots of VJ segments, lots of promos, pretty high on the music content (and before I get the obligatory "well, duh, this is when they actually played music" comments, I want to stress that this is in comparison to how they were much later in the decade, when there were much more commercials, promos, and news breaks.) Ok, so "full sports broadcast" might not exactly be "within reason" but bear with me here. I wanted to spotlight the 1993-95 ABC Sports look, and the best way to do it was with this, a full bowling telecast from 1993. Cheesy Professional Bowlers Tour theme song aside, this look has aged like fine wine. I've mentioned ABC Sports' theme music from this period many, many times... but I'm going to mention it again because it is simply my favorite piece of television production music. Period. But I also wanted to note the graphics, which is why I'm posting this in full. Like I said, it's aged like fine wine. With a few adjustments you could be using these today - and more or less, Fox Sports IS using these graphics today. The resemblance is striking. I'll take crisp and clean graphics like these over overdone gloss and dancing robots any day of the week.

Holy crap that is really awesome. They picked the right promo to redo - One 4 All is one of my favorite promos ever to begin with - and they completely nailed the execution. They actually posted a story on their website about the reshoot. It's a must-read: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/03/26/wbz-one-4-all-promo-remake/

[MEDIA=twitter]976537581583249410[/MEDIA] Oh my god HE EVEN INCLUDED THE #&/=ING SLOGAN

We'll see. I have a brand new desktop setup now, and while I'd like to set it up for video capture (it's primarily a games machine at the moment), I'll be working during the storm. Possibly into the overnight hours, so we'll see.

So. It's going to snow on Wednesday. Biggest snowfall of the year. I have a four tuner Tivo and I was able to catch WPVI, KYW, and WCAU's late news. (I had to keep a tuner tuned to cable news as I had to follow the latest sideshow with the current white house.) Anyway. The snowfall maps come out. Every station is somewhat different. Cecily Tynan on 6 has a big, broad swath of 8-16 over the area, which is a little excessive methinks, but we'll go with that. Over on 3, Kate Bilo has a map that's a little more detailed, with the city sandwiched right inbetween a 3-6 and 6-12 band, but with a graphic indicating "moderate confidence". I like 3's map a little better than 6's. Then I watched 10 to see their call. Tammie Souza presents a few neighborhood zoom-ins with snowfall localized by neighborhood. There are about a dozen locations on screen on each zoom-in. The numbers look completely random and absurdly specific. Center City, for example, gets 5.4 inches while the northeast gets 4.8. I was completely and utterly baffled, and at the end of the screen I yelled at the TV "JUST GIVE US A %^&$ING MAP!" It was information overload and Tammie didn't offer much in the way of context, it was just "here's the numbers". To their credit, they did give us a snow map at the end of the newscast but the damage was done. I am not a fan of Tammie. At all. Oh, and I think they're calling for 5-9. They had this weird gradient across all the totals that it was hard to see what they were calling for. A decent snow map cannot be that hard!

While the open is questionable, the set and graphics are actually really nice for that era.