1980s Set Designers/Fabricators?

[brb588 102]

13 hours ago, bmasters1 said:

 

Do you think the Sports versions (college football, NFL Today) are more colorful?

The contrast is much nicer.

[bmasters1 403]

34 minutes ago, brb588 said:

The contrast is much nicer.

Owing to being later in the 80s, perhaps?

[Breaking News 826]

3 hours ago, qunewsguy said:

The plexi skyline backdrop from this set still exists and it's actually installed in current anchor Dennis House's attic.

I can't believe Dennis has the plexi glass at his house. Now that's interesting. WOW

[Breaking News 826]

Back in the 90s WFSB, WAGA & WITI whomever was the designer had the same idea/concept. The anchor desk and some of the paneling backdrop.

[bmasters1 403]

Two more of my favorite sets from then, both from ABC News on WNT-- the then-new Washington bureau w/the late Frank Reynolds (here seen on its debut broadcast, Mon. Nov. 2, 1981), and the Chicago bureau w/Max Robinson (one version that started in 1981, from the broadcast of May 23, 1983; and the other from the broadcast of July 13, 1983); also includes a shot of Ted Koppel in Washington on Nightline from 1986...

 

 

 

 

 

[5OnYourSideMan 84]

Here are some WKYC sets from 1980 and 1982.

[Info Junkie 1286]

The 1982 set was NBC trying to copy Gannett... funny because they would buy WKYC 13 years later..

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

19 hours ago, Info Junkie said:

The 1982 set was NBC trying to copy Gannett... funny because they would buy WKYC 13 years later..

 

It does have a Gannett vibe to it. 

 

At the time, WKYC was an outlier as an O&O.  WJW had beaten them to the punch by launching NewsCenter8 as much as the NBC stations were branded at the time, and had to resort to Action News, years before WOIO even existed.

 

By the late 70s, the News Ticker theme had given way to Classical Gas/Streets Of, and in the Gannett-esque era, You've got a Friend.

 

WKYC was such a farm team of a station back then, with people like Al Roker, Amanda Arnold, Tom Ryther, Wayland Boot, Doreen Gentzler, Dawn Stensland, Steve Browne, Terry Burhans, and later picking up second and third-winders like Doug Adair. Jeff Maynor, Dick Feagler, and Jim Mueller.

 

Even in marketing, they resorted to a Klein& promo to promote themselves in 1979.

 

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

Here is WKYC in 1976, just a few years off of their old TV3 look, with a set much like it's fellow O&Os.

 

Much of the shakeup may have been due to Virgil Dominic, who worked at WKYC up to the 70's, but was recruited down to Atlanta to try and make something out of WQXI/WXIA (which would also become a Gannett station by way of Combined).  He returned to Cleveland to launch NewsCenter8 which vaulted them to the top and along with NBC's waning fortunes sent WKYC in to desperation mode.

[10Viewer 334]

Noticed a definite trend of TV stations converting a production studio into a "working newsroom" in the late 1970's. Some stations executed this better than others. WXIA seemed to have the best design out of these I could find. Does anybody know who consulted these stations? I'm sure this was an effort to make the newscast seem more "instant" and often relied heavily on electronic graphics. I know in the case of WLCY (WTSP) it was part of a broader effort to beef up that station's news department. I think the same set designer did the sets for WXIA, WLCY and WTHR.

 

WXIA (1977) WLCY (1977) WCMH (1976) WTHR (1977)

[KnoxvilleTVFan 286]

WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky used a newsroom set during the late 1970s and the first part of the 1980s when the station was owned by Gannett. 

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

53 minutes ago, KnoxvilleTVFan said:

WLKY in Louisville, Kentucky used a newsroom set during the late 1970s and the first part of the 1980s when the station was owned by Gannett. 

Scroll back to the first page of this thread, and you'll see a picture of this set...it does look very close to the one launched in Atlanta at WXIA.  These moves (and the "Alive" branding) were done under Combined, before their merger with Gannett.

 

Going back to Virgil Dominic and WXIA, it was actually Combined that sent him packing from there (so says the article below).  He had taken WXIA to #1 under his leadership after he was lured away from WKYC.

http://www.clevelandseniors.com/people/virgil-dominic.htm

 

And after he was hired at WJW, his launch of NewsCenter8 set the stage for their dominance in the years to come.   Looking at this set, it does have some undertones to the NBC look that the network and O&O's were using on their newscasts.

 

Meanwhile at WKYC, they were begging and pleading for local control as WJKW was now eating their lunch.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/153863990/
(read the OCR and you can read most of the article text)

Edited June 6, 2020 by tyrannical bastard
clarification

[Info Junkie 1286]

On 6/5/2020 at 11:41 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

Scroll back to the first page of this thread, and you'll see a picture of this set...it does look very close to the one launched in Atlanta at WXIA.  These moves (and the "Alive" branding) were done under Combined, before their merger with Gannett.

 

Going back to Virgil Dominic and WXIA, it was actually Combined that sent him packing from there (so says the article below).  He had taken WXIA to #1 under his leadership after he was lured away from WKYC.

http://www.clevelandseniors.com/people/virgil-dominic.htm

 

And after he was hired at WJW, his launch of NewsCenter8 set the stage for their dominance in the years to come.   Looking at this set, it does have some undertones to the NBC look that the network and O&O's were using on their newscasts.

 

Meanwhile at WKYC, they were begging and pleading for local control as WJKW was now eating their lunch.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/153863990/
(read the OCR and you can read most of the article text)

I know this is a thread for sets, but....

 

Geez! Four weather people in the span of two years?! No wonder WKYC wasn’t going anywhere!

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

Another standard-issue Scripps set, that existed at WMC and WEWS (until 1981)

I originally thought it was a hand-me-down, but WMC used it back in 1980...while the WEWS version was still in use.

 

Here's WMC using the 70's WEWS-like set all the way in 1985.

 

If my estimations are correct, this set lasted until 1987 and the newer Scripps standard issue set?

 

WEWS had the 1981 set in the middle between the two sets (the blue one with the jagged desk).  Their 1985-ish set lasted a decade, with several paint jobs and a skyline added in 1990 (around the time they changed to NewsChannel 5)

It briefly lasted under the Edd-Kalehoff, slanted "circle 5" revamp, and a new set was built that summer that only lasted until fall of 1998.

 

And we see in the 1980 clip, the "false ceiling" effect.  I know i've shown this before on the site, but here is a "behind-the-scenes" from WEWS showing it in action.

https://youtu.be/BmwAiiDnDjg?t=103

 

[Info Junkie 1286]

55 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Another standard-issue Scripps set, that existed at WMC and WEWS (until 1981)

I originally thought it was a hand-me-down, but WMC used it back in 1980...while the WEWS version was still in use.

 

Here's WMC using the 70's WEWS-like set all the way in 1985.

 

If my estimations are correct, this set lasted until 1987 and the newer Scripps standard issue set?

 

WEWS had the 1981 set in the middle between the two sets (the blue one with the jagged desk).  Their 1985-ish set lasted a decade, with several paint jobs and a skyline added in 1990 (around the time they changed to NewsChannel 5)

It briefly lasted under the Edd-Kalehoff, slanted "circle 5" revamp, and a new set was built that summer that only lasted until fall of 1998.

 

And we see in the 1980 clip, the "false ceiling" effect.  I know i've shown this before on the site, but here is a "behind-the-scenes" from WEWS showing it in action.

https://youtu.be/BmwAiiDnDjg?t=103

 

WMC did the renovation in 1986. It was the last to get the standardized Scripps set:

 

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

Well, if this clip is correct, then the old WEWS Scripps-issue set debuted in 1984.

 

 

[5OnYourSideMan 84]

We all know about the 1985 WJW set. It went through changes. The 1st was a logo change. The 2nd was a logo change and a new color scheme. The 3rd was a name and logo change.

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

The 1993 variant of the set was my favorite, with the "ei8ht is news" being my least favorite.  It just goes to show you what some minor refreshes and a few coats of paint can do to a well-built set.

[Vidifont 50]

On 5/5/2020 at 10:20 AM, 5OnYourSideMan said:

For WJW there are these sets. The one who made these sets is a mystery.

 

The Newscenter 8 set was designed by Hilton Murray, Art Director at WJKW. It was built by a local union shop that made department store displays in Cleveland, Ohio.

[5OnYourSideMan 84]

On 8/29/2020 at 5:02 AM, Vidifont said:

The Newscenter 8 set was designed by Hilton Murray, Art Director at WJKW. It was built by a local union shop that made department store displays in Cleveland, Ohio.

Mystery solved. Thanks dude.

[Vidifont 50]

Just to be clear, I am referring to the 1978 Newscenter 8 set.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Vidifont
Fix copy

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

Found another station that also used the same set WMC used until 1986 and WEWS used until 1981.  KTVK in Phoenix. 

Back then, it was owned by Ernest McFarland's group (later MAC America Communications), whose family and heirs would run the station until its sale to Belo in 1999.

 

The intro and music is much like the ones used by several of the Outlet stations (WCMH, KSAT) and Storer's WAGA.  I have to now wonder if the set was another designer outside of Scripps and the package used was syndicated at the time.

[Samantha 2895]

Well, Hayes put together the Outlet package. That's a known quantity.

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

And yet another Scripps station with the 70's set....WEWS's clone WPTV.  Even down to the logo animation.  The only difference is the "Action News" and "Part of your Life" theme.

 

[bmasters1 403]

Did you know that ABC's Chicago bureau on WNT (at least the first version) had more than we originally saw on television then? Here's a shot of an ABC News promo from 1980 talking about what ABC News had on then (this was on a recently-posted clip of the evening edition of WAKR Channel 23 when that was the ABC station of Akron/Canton, OH; it is now WVPX, and is the Ion Television O&O there); you'll see that, like the Washington bureau, there was a second header that had "ABC News Chicago" (in addition to the first one above the national map that we saw behind Max); you can see part of that second header in the top left of this screencap.