The Ever-Evolving Gray Graphics Situation...Thread

[GodfreyGR 680]

1 hour ago, nathannah said:

They also have a 'malicious compliance' version of the logo where the ABC ball is still used...but for the Fox version they just replace the ABC text with the Fox logo. It's technically compliant for its use, but it feels like it's easier to just switch logos without the black ball being needed.

Which throws me for a loop when I watch, but small potatoes. Did they do that just for the ease of simplicity knowing they're getting the new graphics package eventually (which, if history keeps up, there will likely not be any network logos on that logo), or would it have been just as easy for them to take the entire ABC logo out and place the Fox logo in?

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

On 4/28/2025 at 3:21 PM, NEOMatrix said:

WUAB has had either horrendous or generic branding ever since “Hometeam 43” in 1999. Between “Hometeam”, “(my)43 the Block,” “CLE43”, and “UPN/my/CW 43”, I don’t think Raycom has put any effort into branding WUAB, or even WOIO for that matter. Honestly, it’s nice to see Gray trying.

"43 The Block" couldn't have come at a worse time.  They had just lost the Indians and Cavs to cable and WBNX was starting to clean their clocks in the ratings by smartly investing in programming.  WUAB had been burned in the past by some deals (notably Webster reruns) but managed to get some good syndication as well.

 

WUAB's strategy at the time?  Bulk up on informercials and create a bunch of amateur comedy-mercials with comedian-hosts like Mike Polk. 

Even he lampooned these efforts in WUAB's 50th anniversary special!

https://youtu.be/pKW-7sccPDY?si=wXH-3IGg7AZEDKbf&t=1242

 

[tylerSC 62]

WHNS in Greenville-Spartanburg is overdue to update to the Gray graphics package. They are still using old Meredith graphics. And will they follow the Gray trend and remove FOX Carolina from their branding? They haven't used Channel 21 in years.

[TheRolyPoly 2534]

I'll do better than the last poster...
 

 

 

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

34 minutes ago, tylerSC said:

WHNS in Greenville-Spartanburg is overdue to update to the Gray graphics package. They are still using old Meredith graphics. And will they follow the Gray trend and remove FOX Carolina from their branding? They haven't used Channel 21 in years.

I just have to wonder if GrayOne has existed alongside a Nexstar station (like WSPA) that looks very similar.  WSPA's is modified heavily, but it uses practially the same fonts as GrayOne and others (like WYTV, WHTM, WYOU/WBRE, WIVB, etc...)

[tylerSC 62]

Yes the Nexstar graphics used by WSPA do look similar in font to GrayOne. In Charlotte, WBTV has GrayOne but the Nexstar graphics on WJZY look a bit different than WSPA. I receive very strong signals from WBTV and WJZY in Spartanburg, even though WSPA and WHNS are my true locals. But from Charlotte, I think WSOC is the best overall news station, although you need more of a strategic antenna to pull in their main signal or the translator here. From Greenville, WYFF is my preferred news station.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 943]

20 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I just have to wonder if GrayOne has existed alongside a Nexstar station (like WSPA) that looks very similar.  WSPA's is modified heavily, but it uses practially the same fonts as GrayOne and others (like WYTV, WHTM, WYOU/WBRE, WIVB, etc...)

Also of note, the Nexstar package has been around waaay longer than GrayONE

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

4 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

Also of note, the Nexstar package has been around waaay longer than GrayONE

Even WISH-TV's look keeps it alive after Nexstar traded over to WTTV/WXIN.  And WXIN's new look looks like a more refined GrayOne.

GrayOne hasn't even made it's way around the country yet and it's getting stale.  I wonder if they ever intended to take it national after it debuted at WANF.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 943]

15 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Even WISH-TV's look keeps it alive after Nexstar traded over to WTTV/WXIN.  And WXIN's new look looks like a more refined GrayOne.

GrayOne hasn't even made it's way around the country yet and it's getting stale.  I wonder if they ever intended to take it national after it debuted at WANF.

They're doing the same thing as Sinclair did -- took them FOREVER to roll out and Sinclair's is what, almost a decade old (combining the glass/curves 1.0 and 2.0 looks) and also very stale?

[kfc513 238]

8 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

They're doing the same thing as Sinclair did -- took them FOREVER to roll out and Sinclair's is what, almost a decade old (combining the glass/curves 1.0 and 2.0 looks) and also very stale?

 

Even then, Sinclair's glass/curves look didn't make it to all of their stations before it got replaced.

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

When was the last time a station or group actually introduced a new package?  That's how stale and boring everything is right now.  The industry is stuck in 2019.

[Dave Lampstein 117]

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

When was the last time a station or group actually introduced a new package?  That's how stale and boring everything is right now.  The industry is stuck in 2019.

I was just thinking about this the other day. Fox launched their last look in 2019, TEGNA even before that. Lots of stale stuff on the air right now. I guess CBS and ABC have the “newest” stuff on air but it’s nothing to write home about. 

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

3 hours ago, Dave Lampstein said:

I was just thinking about this the other day. Fox launched their last look in 2019, TEGNA even before that. Lots of stale stuff on the air right now. I guess CBS and ABC have the “newest” stuff on air but it’s nothing to write home about. 

With those moves, it's more sameness and centralization.  Even Cox introduced a centralized package to their ongoing stations.  

 

Gray stripping stations of network logos takes out even more, but it's a good preemptive move once the networks start walking away...

[cg4 6]

On 5/15/2025 at 5:04 PM, tylerSC said:

WHNS in Greenville-Spartanburg is overdue to update to the Gray graphics package. They are still using old Meredith graphics. And will they follow the Gray trend and remove FOX Carolina from their branding? They haven't used Channel 21 in years.

 

Remove the Fox branding? That's only for their CBS/NBC affiliates.

[MicFlag 10]

I’ve sampled a Gray station which was formerly heavily integrated with their network for graphics, music, promos and all. It’s been that way for decades. No mention of the network at all now. They are a top-notch station with exceptional quality. But the thorough flushing of the network feels abrupt and almost orphan, in my opinion, especially after so many years of identifying with it.

[Hometown News 58]

On 5/19/2025 at 1:32 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

When was the last time a station or group actually introduced a new package?  That's how stale and boring everything is right now.  The industry is stuck in 2019.

 

Even if anyone did introduce a new look, I think we all know it'd just be a slightly (and I mean slightly) different spin on the same flat, minimalistic and boxy look that everyone else has been using for the past decade.

[nathannah 2488]

Expect the next ones to probably have some sort of AI tie-in to replace human L3s with summaries (and trouble to ensue if it screws up). All media design seems stuck in the same aesthetic lately, too simple and too unadorned.

[Weeters 1965]

Broadcast graphic design has trended alongside popular web app/mobile phone UI for a while now, and that's also stagnated quite a bit from where it was 15 or so years ago. Remember how news graphics always had to be "shiny" when that was the Apple iOS look? That slowly died off as Apple and Google shifted away from that design language. The Apple design language itself has become a broadcast graphics package.

 

The corporate design world has a lot of weird stuff going on right now, the kind of abstract 3D ribbon-y stuff and flowing photorealistic materials is popular, along with funky fonts (more the design in the article than what it's talking about), but I'm not sure how any of that actually translates into the apps that these companies using them make, let alone local news.

 

There is a lot of reasons why news graphics have trended this way, and I think we're more or less stuck here for the time being. Money and talent are two major factors at the local level. You can't have the talent without money, and you don't make money if your expensive talented designers are constantly making news graphics, so templates it is! Go find an agency to develops a template-driven "design system," then keep it for a long time because it was expensive, and nobody's doing anything wildly different anyways.

 

TL;DR: The era of "unique" broadcast design died when motion graphics stopped being almost exclusively broadcast-related. It shouldn't be surprising this happened as video ads on the internet became commonplace.

 

[Kingpeytonifx 14]

It looks like KBTX will be switching to grayone later this week I found this on a zeam thumbnail for a kbtx newscast. Also a modified logo appears keeping the longtime 3 with a star logo 

[LOWERCASE GUY 270]

48 minutes ago, Kingpeytonifx said:

It looks like KBTX will be switching to grayone later this week I found this on a zeam thumbnail for a kbtx newscast. Also a modified logo appears keeping the longtime 3 with a star logo 

One Week From Today.

[Kingpeytonifx 14]

4 minutes ago, LOWERCASE GUY said:

One Week From Today.

BTW how do you know that much about these graphics you predicted walb and wilx?

[Kingpeytonifx 14]

On 5/24/2025 at 2:12 AM, MicFlag said:

I’ve sampled a Gray station which was formerly heavily integrated with their network for graphics, music, promos and all. It’s been that way for decades. No mention of the network at all now. They are a top-notch station with exceptional quality. But the thorough flushing of the network feels abrupt and almost orphan, in my opinion, especially after so many years of identifying with it.

Was that wmtv 15?

[tyrannical bastard 4004]

On 5/25/2025 at 6:15 PM, nathannah said:

Expect the next ones to probably have some sort of AI tie-in to replace human L3s with summaries (and trouble to ensue if it screws up). All media design seems stuck in the same aesthetic lately, too simple and too unadorned.

Hopefully this fixes the stations that cram entirely too many words into one super.  These are the ones that have the constant L3 that switches from the story, to the person on camera, back to the story.  With text sizing, these supers are downright unreadable.

 

Wish a group would bring back a form of "Texta", this was the non-obtrusive lower graphic that summarized a story that was introduced by WKRC in Cincinnati.  It lasted through Citicasters into Jacor, Clear Channel and Newport, and Newport rolled it out to many of their stations.  Some Nexstar stations (post-Newport) even used it and it survived on several ex-Newport Sinclair stations until the respective Sinclair package was introduced.