Jess

The ND has changed. Carla Carpenter, who was for years the ND, moved to a new position as VP/Digital for the ABC O&Os. Though I think the shift to MOAR TEKK began under her watch, or certainly Bernie Prazenica's. If 6 is worried about 10, they're crazy. 10's product is superior, but viewing habits are so entrenched, 6's afternoon ratings are higher than everyone else combined I think. If anything, I think 10 needs to do a much better job of promoting their product. I feel like I come off as a super fanboy, but that's because I think the product is great right now and they need to do something better than "Count On It".

I got to see the circa-2004 set during a visit to NBC 10. This video I'm using for reference: Home base and the weather center were directly opposite each other. Significant space was carved out for the weather center - it really is quite deep. Elements were removed in the HD conversion but the basic look remained. To the right of the main desk was the "NetCenter" standup area, and a greenscreen. To the right of the Weather Center was a discussion area used for Sports Final. From what I've been able to gather from the newscasts, home base is now roughly where the old NetCenter/greenscreen area were, and weather's now in a cove to the right.

Four sets. Let me explain. There are two "halves" of the newsroom. The one you saw up until they went HD was the on-air half; the other half, containing the edit suites, was rarely seen on camera. The introduction to the first 4pm newscast uses the newsroom extensively. Larry is walking through the not-camera half. [yt]yg5ZruTPajo[/yt] What you don't see is that the newsroom opens out to the rest of that floor, to what is now the streetside studio. Believe it or not, that area has always been set up for on-camera work. It was part of the NewsCenter when that was established, and the EarthWatch weather center was around the spot where they've shoved the desk in now. More importantly... this was the location of one of their older sets. , but the second set shown clearly showed a large window to the outside in some camera angles.

This just turned up on Vimeo... and holy shit is it amazing. http://vimeo.com/104648365 This is a full-length profile of Jim Gardner. From the late 1970s, as the description says. From what I can gather this must have been made not long after he was named lead anchor. 1978 or 1979, as it VERY CLEARLY shows Kane anchoring at WCAU. It's probably the most personal interview he's EVER given in his long career here. Seriously, he has A FULL HEAD OF DARK HAIR and is shown WEARING A LEATHER JACKET. It is AMAZING.

It's clear that the rename to "World News Tonight" was a last-minute decision. Those titles are clearly for "World News with David Muir", and it's obvious "Tonight" was edited into the titles at the very last minute. (I'm also not 100% sure, but one of the shots still has "DIANE" at least in the shadows under "DAVID"... or it's a Diane image that they didn't bother to re-render.) ABC switched up executive producers, so I wonder if the move back to "Tonight" was one of the first things the new EP did.

Belo was beginning to hub out of Dallas. When the acquisition was announced, it was probably made clear that the combined company's graphics hub would be G3 out of Denver. That stopped (or slowed, since some stations took on the look) the rollout until Gannett took control. As for the name of the gfx package, I always thought it was G3.0. That was posted on their facebook page after they went to the current look.

Nope. At WCAU she always had this sort of condescending attitude that was off-putting. Especially when she was doing mornings. She went out, like many Philadelphia newscasters do, in a complete blaze of stupid. She threatened a reporter electronically with the words "you ever been in a street fight, bitch"?

Taking this in another direction... Watching the riots, I've been switching through three stations. KSDK, who is erratic with the live streams, KTVI/KPLR, which crashes my iPhone and fails to work half the time, and KMOV, which employs one of the biggest counts* market #4 has ever had as their lead anchor. I would like a legitimate fourth choice. What's going on at KDNL is an absolute disgrace. There is a civil emergency going on in that market right now, and one of the big four affiliates is simply unable to cover it for arbitrary budgetary reasons. If Sinclair is committed to news on its stations, if Sinclair is buying up stations left and right, there is no reason whatsoever that its ABC station in Market 21 should not have a news department. I'd prefer Sinclair build a news department instead of losing the affiliation, because the station it would go to would be KPLR and we'd still only have three voices. *Taken from my absolute favorite Roger Grimsby quote. When asked what his most embarrassing moment on television is, his response: "Easy. I mispronounced 'count'." Those familiar with curse words will get it. Roger's absolute deadpan makes it funnier.

Knapp and Larry Kane hated each other in Philly. H-A-T-E-D. Knapp is actually on record with comments claiming that Kane engineered her departure. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. But things were definitely frosty between her and the station. As for the gfx equipment, the Belo stations were to roll out the new Miranda system and transition to the new graphics over the last year or so. Since one of the first stations to switch (KING? WWL?) showed behind the scenes footage with text that clearly stated "G3 MIRANDA TEST", I'm assuming Gannett is continuing the rollout, just with their graphics package in place of the Belo one. And just cuz this thread seems like the best place to put it: KSDK really shouldn't use the gentle cuts of This Is Home over footage of the unrest in Ferguson...

So weatherman Adam Joseph welcomed a baby boy today with his partner Karl. Also, Adam Joseph is gay. And I don't think he ever actually came out officially. Though I totally thought he was gay long ago. My actual initial reaction to that story was - oh, he's not gay?! - until I read it. That's not really a big deal to me. A friend came out to me years ago and I was like "oh, that's nice". And think - not that long ago the key 6pm and 11pm team consisted of three heterosexual white guys, something which the Inquirer actually called "shameful". Now the station's probably more diverse than any of the others as far as it comes to people of race, gender, and color.

I thought KVUE was using the look in promos. Texas would be interesting because that's a longtime signature theme... and Gannett has used Propulsion in the past.

They're having some growing pains, which is expected. The Gannett stations had rundowns and semi-permanent lower thirds when they switched. The Belo stations didn't. I half wonder if the dislike towards this look is just because of standardization. I really think this ad sums up how most of us feel when something gets changed. And why we should not feel that way. [yt]tetOSMilRKg[/yt]

Yes. The Belo stations were unifying on the Vertigo platform. My guess is Gannett decided to stay with the platorm but instead of rolling out the Belo/Hothaus GFX, went with their own stuff. Since their legacy stations are still on Dekos as far as I know, my guess is those stations will get Miranda equipment as well. G3 was always G3. The Mill was the design agency brought in to consult on this look. My positive attitude about this look has not and will not change. It's refreshing, striking, and perhaps since they're on a modern platform, possibly capable of more eyecandy as well. It enhances the editorial content substantially, and it looks pretty damn good to me as a web designer.

They have five mets, really - they dropped the "AccuWeather team" bit and strictly refer to Karen Rogers as traffic nowadays. I don't think the first choice is WABC, because they do use Cecily and Adam pretty heavily if there's a big weather story. They're also more telegenic (IMO) than most of the WABC staff. (I'd argue Amy Freeze as the big exception, of course.)

As far as Ginger Zee, the instructions so far seem to be "use Philadelphia's weather department". Cecily Tynan's doing Mon-Wed and Adam Joseph's doing Thursday and Friday.

I just like that ticker period. It's a lot easier to read than some of the other stations, and I like having visual cues as to when they go to Sports, or Teases, or Breaking News. CNN's ticker had that, like, a decade ago. And they have not even come close to matching that design since. Here's the problem with 6's graphics and presentation. They have a ton of fantastic technology and resources at their potential. I have no doubt that they have access to things that few, if any, stations have access to, and they're relishing in it. Maybe it's because they spent so many years with a blue wall and a desk as their set, or had magnetic weather into 2000. There is a TON of stuff they can do with what they have. Which is the problem... they're actually doing a ton of stuff. Most of the 3D graphics are rendered in real time. The bug? Real-time rendered 3D. The graphics? great prepro or real-time. The weather graphics show a busy overpass render, with speeding traffic, effortlessly. DoubleScan, Big Board, video wall, Crystal City, etc. I don't know about you, but my favorite part of Action News - the 20 seconds or so that Jim and Cecily banter - have nothing to do with fancy weather graphics or flying 3D text. In the same vein, I thought I'd be disappointed when 10 changed its graphics from the ultra-busy localized Look F to vanilla Look F. I'm actually not disappointed - I love that look immensely. It's reserved, it's distinguished, and it really does look attractive. 10 obviously doesn't have the graphical capabilities 6 has, but their graphics have rules and structure, and you need that.

Action Radar and Satellite 6 used to be used with the on-air gfx, but I think that was phased out a few graphics packages ago. Certainly by the time they went to chromakey weather, decades after every other station in the country did so, they were gone. (I think they had StormTracker by then.)

Tradition. "Action Cam" and its cousin, "Via Satellite", were used throughout the 1980s and 90s - reporters would sign off live shots by saying "Live on the Action Cam". They don't do that anymore but "Action Cam" has stuck around. I think they verbally referenced it a few weeks ago! And yes, they do say "Action Radar with Satellite 6" every forecast, which makes no sense because they have Storm Tracker Double Scan and no on-screen graphics indicating "Action Radar" or "Satellite 6"...

The 4 and 5pm newscasts now have a ticker. It's not the one they use during the mornings, though. It's actually a bit more basic though it has some cool effects. If you look closely, you'll see 6ABC's philosophy on the ABC logo, which is basically "fuck it". A flat version, a version with the old ABC ball, a version with the new ABC ball, and a vizrt-generated bug that looks nothing like either ABC ball can all be seen. [ATTACH]1343.IPB[/ATTACH]

Here's my insight. GOD F***ING DAMMIT. I think what I said originally still applies. That and I have a couple more things to write since a lot of news happened today. So, most of the original post follows. --- From Deadspin. Today show, according to two sources. A deal appears likely, we're told, though Horowitz still has to extract himself from his contract with ESPN. At the moment, one source says, ESPN president John Skipper is trying to coax a sizable ransom out of Comcast, NBC's parent company. The source put the chances of the deal going through at "70-30 or 65-35."[/size] It's not clear what Horowitz's new position would be. We're told that Don Nash would stay on as [/size]Today's executive producer and that Horowitz would oversee him.[/size] You know how I said Bristol has been more toxic to the medium of journalism than anything Fox News and MSNBC have ever, ever done? Meet exhibit 1. Jamie Horowitz. A fast-rising producer at ESPN who took over First Take and turned it into a screaming debatefest with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. For those not familiar with First Take, it is pretty much the worst sports show ever produced. But people are watching. And it infected the already toxic culture of Bristol so much that the station is pretty much unwatchable. This is a must-read, and a depressing one, but it illustrates how toxic the show is and how it ruined ESPN. Jamie Horowitz is successful at ESPN. He is so successful that I go out of my way to avoid ESPN on anything relevant to sports. I might be overhyping this, but I believe his appointment is nothing less than a catastrophic blow to American journalism. Expect the show to chase the next Tebow, or any crime story that's not relevant to anything, to the bottom. You think NBC News was worried when MSNBC began to take a left turn? NBC News will be severely hurt by a Jamie Horowitz Today Show.

Nooooooooo!! Daralene was one of their best reporters. Gonna suck to see her go, but best wishes.

One more thing - tonight's 6pm news had a full close, with the "From Channel 6..." announcement. First time I've seen them run that announcement in months. I got it on my FiOS box but not the TiVo that I can more easily transfer things over from...

WPVI did what has to be a first for a TV station on YouTube: upload its opens. Mornings, 4pm, 6pm, and 11pm are all represented, each in a different seasonal version. Interestingly they show a full 4pm and 11pm open - they use the abbreviated versions on air.

OH GOD YES. It's done in a secondary studio that hasn't been upped to HD, so the picture is 16x9 SD. The A-Block is a quick news update, with a weather hit or a live report or two. Then come the paid segments where Ukee and Pat talk to a doctor from a hospital sponsoring the place. Or try out Firehouse Subs. It's a bit of news and then unwatchable fluff. The sad part is, they're wasting their best anchor team - Ukee Washington and Pat Ciarocchi - on this crap. At least give them a noon newscast and if we need to do this, I don't see why you can't do it on Philly 57 at 4pm. (I love Steve Harvey Feud, but do we REALLY need two hours of it per day?) Anyway, this is from the Sandy Hook shootings and demonstrates the format, especially how awkward it becomes during breaking news: [yt]nToc3GqdZJk[/yt] (Note: They redid the graphics a few months ago. The ones seen here were clearly based off of the 2007 look. The new ones are more like the CBS O&O look and use Gotham - ironically I think they look better than the news lower thirds...)

If it's the long commercial that encourages callers to reference "ABC 6" at the end, that's been running on NBC 10 as well. It's nothing new. 6 has also been running those "Medical Minute" ads sponsored by a local hospital. Talk Philly says hi.