The Ever-Evolving Gray Graphics Situation...Thread

[Dave Lampstein 287]

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 4676]

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 18]

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 33]

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 127]

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 2792]

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 2173]

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.

 

[LOWERCASE GUY 296]

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.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

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.

[AC1211 7]

does that mean kwtx is also on the line?

[AC1211 7]

sooo, i recorded the first few seconds of kbtx's newscast and i can see they are getting close each newscast

 

Edited June 2, 2025 by AC1211

[AC1211 7]

1 hour ago, Kingpeytonifx said:

KBTX has debuted grayone with new music 

i'm not really sure if it was a good idea for them to get rid of this is your news

[GraphicsMan 345]

You know this is one slow rollout. 

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

6 hours ago, LOWERCASE GUY said:

There will be a break for now in launches. 4 stations will launch within a week of each other beginning in late July/Early August

 

I have a rolling list of stations that have yet to switch to GrayONE. 52 news departments have yet to switch. KOSA/KCWO has somewhat soft-launched with their logo but still using old graphics.

[24994J 5888]

The moderators have recently had to hide several posts from less-seasoned users, asking about individual stations' launches. Gray has like a thousand stations, we don't need to see inquiries about all of them. Please try and show some restraint, from this point on.

Edited June 3, 2025 by 24994J

[Denver Murray 15]

I just wanted to say thank you to the admins, moderators, and users for all the wonderful updates, videos, and photos that debut each Gray TV station's new graphics. I've been here from the start of the GrayOne thread.  Also, to the few who know what and when each one will debut, thanks for keeping it secret. I like the suspense and surprise.  I still despise the red theme (Richmond, Atlanta, etc.,) but the others are fantastic.  Thanks again for all the updates! 

[AC1211 7]

i'm not sure if someone's already posted this but here's what i found on wtap's 24-7 weather thingy

[AC1211 7]

so uhh, something to notice on wtap's weather intro

 

 

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

On 6/5/2025 at 7:51 AM, AC1211 said:

so uhh, something to notice on wtap's weather intro

 

 

 

Can you explain? I don't understand what you're trying to point out.

[AC1211 7]

1 minute ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Can you explain? I don't understand what you're trying to point out.

new animation

[AC1211 7]

2 hours ago, AC1211 said:

new animation

i wish i was able to edit messages but wtap switched from their previous animation to a grayone animation

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

That still looks like the old animation to me so I'm still confused.

[tylerSC 67]

On 5/22/2025 at 12:57 PM, cg4 said:

 

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

I was not aware of that. But why would they decide to remove CBS/NBC logos but not FOX? And do they have any ABC affiliates? I personally prefer network logos as an identifiable aspect of the station. Especially heritage stations such as WBTV in Charlotte which has been a long term legacy CBS affiliate since day one dating back to 1949.

 

And I especially dislike WJZY in Charlotte becoming Queen City News  and a very understated FOX Charlotte, rather than the former FOX 46. Although that is a Nexstar decision rather than Gray in that scenario.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

23 minutes ago, Kingpeytonifx said:

Looks like kcrg will be getting grayone soon I got this form the live stream page 

If they get grayone they would likely get CBS local form Stephen Arnold because kcrg is grandfathered to use the CBS enforcer melody 

 

No they're not. Just because KCRG is using Enforcer now, doesn't mean they'll use CBS Local come GrayONE.

 

More than likely, Gray will be switching them to either Unite, Ascend, or some other SAM package that's not CBS-themed.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

To clarify his post above... WFIE launched a new brand at 12 Noon today. Except... its not a new brand. Temporary? Maybe, but currently unsure.

 

I checked Zeam and the later 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00 p.m. newscasts... it still goes by 14 News, so I wouldn't go full gorilla on this change just yet.