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The worst news opens of all time


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Going to have to add KLST to this list. I don't know what exactly they did, the animations and color is completely off in their open!

 

 

Wow. Have they heard of fill lighting? Those shadows on the face are horrible.

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Remember, that's San Angelo. That is so DMA #195... #195 of 210!

 

It would also explain why their chief meteorologist and sports director look to be fresh college grads, but when you're market 195, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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It would also explain why their chief meteorologist and sports director look to be fresh college grads, but when you're market 195, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Must be fun to be the only Nielsen family for hundreds of miles..

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  • 3 months later...
The one thing worse than a lousy news open?

Not having one at all.

 

It's a troubling trend as some stations have given up entirely and just dump straight into the news as if they're coming back from break.

Maybe a breaking news stinger to start it off, but that's it.

Some stations have made the compromise to make the "breaking news" open that's quick and serves the dual purpose.

 

Tbh that's still better than playing an awful, drawn-out open. At least no open saves time and allows you to sneak in another VO or add a SOT to a VO.

 

What I prefer to do is run the 6-8 second open, then a SOT or a quick VO before a 2-shot. Headlines are a waste of time too.

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1D0906B0-F154-4FCC-BA54-DFBCA69B1299.thumb.png.fc86af730f6378a3dc465e0c52be9db7.png WNYT obliterated their 1997 graphics in 2002 by cheaply adding Arial fonts and blue-purple gradients in their L3’s and opens. There isn’t an open during that era shown at all but I found some snippets on the internet archives. This comparison shows the downgrade.

 

Sticking with Albany, rival WRGB did a similar thing with their “Impact” graphics after going HD — their 2014 package made the Sinclair graphics look better!

 

And Raymie’s already talked about WTEN’s attempt to “modernize” their then-6 year old package on this thread a few years ago...

0C393340-FDB5-4BB0-B0EF-CDD619D22C18.thumb.png.fa9d369bcd732e7d4846dd3e20faf354.png

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[ATTACH=full]5331[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]5330[/ATTACH] WNYT obliterated their 1997 graphics in 2002 by cheaply adding Arial fonts and blue-purple gradients in their L3’s and opens. There isn’t an open during that era shown at all but I found some snippets on the internet archives. This comparison shows the downgrade.

 

The opens were the exact same as the 1997-2002 opens, only with a font change. The talent opens were roughly the talent in front of a blue/purple gradient screen. The L3's were a very bad imitation of the NBC News graphics of this time and in their cheapness the background of those had "WNYT NEWSCHANNEL 13 LIVE LOCAL LATEBREAKING" ghosted in the background. The perfect package for a time where WNYT was uncharacteristically unstable.

 

Fun fact: The reporter on the right of the 2-box demonstrating this abomination is Elizabeth Scarborough, daughter of Chuck whom was hired straight out of college. She later would go to WCMH and KPRC before leaving the business.

 

Sticking with Albany, rival WRGB did a similar thing with their “Impact” graphics after going HD — their 2014 package made the Sinclair graphics look better!

 

This package went live about three months before the Sinclair package and Curves/Glass started to roll out. It makes me wonder if this was either the original concept Sinclair was coming up with or a "Plan B" for markets where they have two practical news operations such as Mobile and Eugene.

 

And Raymie’s already talked about WTEN’s attempt to “modernize” their then-6 year old package on this thread a few years ago...

 

I will daringly say this: Out of every package I remember, going back to the last "Action News" intro seen when that 1987 newscast was unearthed, the best graphics/theme combination is what they have right now since Inergy fits it and them like a glove.

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Yep, I (barely) remember those opens when my family watched WNYT back in 2003. I was a little 2-year-old who had an obsession with John Gray (I don’t know why but I was little kid so y’know...) He left that station at the end of the year, 8 months before WNYT debuted a much more beautiful-looking graphics package.

 

And if WRGB’s package WAS Sinclair’s original concept, then I would feel really ashamed if I owned a Sinclair station that would be adopting those. Thank god for the “curves”!

 

Now let’s have a look at WIAT’s mess of a new look (I hope this soon gets pushed aside for the Nexstar CBS package):

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Now let’s have a look at WIAT’s mess of a new look (I hope this soon gets pushed aside for the Nexstar CBS package):

 

That looks like something some teen kid Wikipedia editor who has been blocked 19 times with 17 sockpuppets came up with trying to make up a station. That barely-visible text thinness is the polar opposite worst from WJZ's Fat Helvetica.

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Holy hell. It's worse than I thought.

 

Such a hodgepodge.

 

I mentioned in the Nexstar thread that WIAT's been using the open since 2014 after the "WIAT 42" rebranding and the switch to 615 Music's Impact. I'm guessing WIAT has been using the blue graphics since last year although the lower thirds still remain the same. The only thing they used the WFLA graphics package is when they mention their mobile news or weather app during their newscasts. They're probably transitioning to the new ones very slowly.

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I always though WRTV's graphics looked terribly cheap for a market Indy's size in the mid 90's:

 

As I stated on the Classic Video Thread, this may have been a temporary look after an apparently disastrous relaunch earlier that year (still don't know what they did exactly, since WRTV from the mid 90s is rare to begin with).

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[MEDIA=vimeo]244566783[/MEDIA]

WDHN’s 1995 open may be your typical low-budget last place UHF station, but when you compare it to what their sister station KARK in Little Rock was using at the time...

You’d think WDHN could do better than that.

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