The CMG Graphics Hub, based out of WSB in Atlanta, led the package development, with it built on the Chyron Prime graphics platform.

Most shiny 3D elements are used in fullscreen animated elements, including opens, stingers, and wipes, with a focus on angular elements and diamond shapes, often with arrow elements inspired by those shapes.

Opens typically lean more toward a rather subdued color scheme with a series of arrow pointers entering the screen from opposite directions, while the station’s logo, rendered in separate 3D pieces, flutters into view. Only one station has launched a more complex open featuring additional station branding.

Some of the stations position the logo roughly in the left two-thirds of the screen, while others display it wider, stretching more into the openings created by the 3D glass and metallic elements to swap in local imagery to the right.

Opens also contain a line of marching text with various locales separated by pipes under the logo.

A similar look is used for various fullscreen animated elements, such as the “Right Now” stinger shown above. These tend to be more text-based and feature blue and silver shapes, with everything arranged inside a large central diamond, often sporting a silver arrow accent to the right. Some stations take these elements a step further by layering in photos. 

The text in these graphics is highly 3D and features what appears to be more of a matte face with more reflective sides.

Surrounding this are multiple angular elements, shown at various degrees of intensity and the option for a more subtle checkerboard-like pattern. There are several variations available and a thick silver arrow-like element often serves as a wipe.

For other portions of the package, including lower thirds, OTSs and fullscreen lists, a much flatter look is used, though there are some graphical tie-ins to elements found in the 3D design.

A ticker bar can be added to the bottom of the screen, capped with a thin yellow line on top with a white one below. Stations can insert branding or sponsor logos here as needed.

The far left of the screen is reserved for a bug and time and temperature that sits above the ticker, with layouts varying from station to station.

For example, WFTV in Orlando puts its red boxed logo to the left with a semi-transparent box next to it for a stacked time and temp.

Action News Jax (WFOX and WJAX, run by CMG via a JSA in Jacksonville, Florida) runs its logo along the top of the space, including having the option to add a “First Alert Weather Day” notation, and puts the current time and temperature below in a black bar.

WSOC in Charlotte, North Carolina, opts to run its circular “9” logo in a slightly narrower space with the time and temp part of the ticker bar below.

Meanwhile, the lower thirds themselves use a blue rectangle with a white line running up the left side and most of the way across the top, which does an effective job at framing out the space and the information displayed in it.

Story banners run wider than identifier insert graphics and the second tier typically includes a yellow pipe on both sides of the text displayed here, which ends up subtly drawing the eye to it while also building a connection to that scrolling list of cities in the opens. Inserts for double anchors run the full width with a triangular arrow accent to the left of each name.

The lower right of the lower thirds features a sort of reverse L-shaped accent, drawing on the arrow-like elements in the animated fullscreens.

Roughly half of the blue bar also features a twinkling matrix of dots.

There is the option for an additional tier above the blue bar, typically shown in white or red for breaking news. Some stations appear to allow a slight gap between the lower third insert and ticker, which can be used to add a red accent between the two. 

For teasers, a two-line blue box can be added in the lower left corner, accented by two yellow L-shaped elements, again inspired by the arrows and angles in the open.

Another layout includes adding a full-width blue background with dot accents behind the ticker and roughly half the of the bug with a white box with a yellow underline used to house the headline text.

The package also includes an OTS template that occupies slightly less than half of the screen width and features a sort of stepped layout combining white, gray, yellow and blue bars to create a sort of frame for the topical imagery with a blue box below for additional text.

There is also a list-style option with a white header element, yellow accent and multiple shades of blue used for each item of text shown.

Fullscreen lists use an ultra-clean look with a blue header with generous breathing room along the top with space for lines of text, capped with a colored vertical rule on the left below. There is also the option to make the current point larger and bolder.

CMG has been steadily rolling out the new look the week of Jan. 8, 2024, with nearly every station in the group seeing the design launch. WSB, WJAX, WFOX, WPXI, WHIO, WFTV, KIRO and WSOC have all debuted the new design in one form or another.

Action News Jax (WJAX and WFOX)

Motion Graphics

WJAX

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WSOC

Motion Graphics

WSOC

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WFTV 

Motion Graphics

WFTV

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WPXI

Motion Graphics

WPXI

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WHIO

Motion Graphics

WHIO

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WFXT

Motion Graphics

WFXT

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WNBC moves into its half of the newly-split Studio 3B

The noon eastern hour of “Chris Jansing Reports” on Jan. 8, 2024, was branded as “How to Win 2024” and anchored by Katy Tur while using the network’s Decision 2024 look and music.

NewscastStudio confirmed that Tur anchored from Studio 3B West, which will become the home of NBCUniversal-owned WNJU later in 2024. WNBC moved into the east half of the space in November 2023.

For the special, which came at the 7-day mark before the Iowa Caucuses, MSNBC brought in the wide, curved desk outfitted with stars along the bottom front that it frequently uses for political and election coverage.

The Telemundo set did not have any visible Telemundo branding on it — unlike the NBC peacock outlines installed on the backlit walls next door, though it’s also possible they were either removed or not installed yet. 

Much of the rest of the studio also appeared, including a plentiful amount of seamless video walls and backlit panels as well as circular LED columns — something that isn’t found on the WNBC side. 

MSNBC took advantage of all those LED pixels to showcase familiar imagery — including a simulated view of Rockefeller Center’s facade as the primary background behind Tur.

Also appearing during the space was another video wall camera right and a trio of tracking video panels on the opposite side. Both of these elements were used for remote interviews.

A separate area featuring a taller LED video array next to two video walls meeting at a 90-degree angle was also shown.

MSNBC’s design team used a bit of a different approach on the circular LED columns, borrowing the star outline from the Decision 2024 look but switching to deeper blue and red along with vertical colored accents.

The studio floor was also decked out with a stars and stripes themed decal. 

As a testament to the space’s flexibility, MSNBC ended up having Tur stay put on the same set — rather than running down the hall — to anchor her normal hour of “Katy Tur Reports” immediately following the special and fed the “MSNBC Reports” virtual set extensions to the video walls.

NBC first announced plans to split 3B, which had been one of the larger sized spaces on the third floor, back in 2022. It will eventually move WNJU from New Jersey after it completes building a new shared newsroom for WNJU and WNBC.

The various studios inside the complex, along with the control rooms, are all interconnected and hot swappable, allowing shows to move between studios or control rooms quickly. This allows flexible in production and adds redundancy.

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WPKD is a former CW affiliate that CBS News and Stations converted to an independent on Sept. 1, 2023, also changing its calls from WPCW, along with seven of its sister stations that were formerly linked to The CW.

Many of these stations switched over to the name “(City Name) (Channel Number),” but Pittsburgh, KPIX in San Fransisco, and KMAX in Sacramento, California, tacked on a plus sign to their familiar letters, meaning that WPCW is known on-air as KDKA+

The new broadcast will be branded as “Primetime News on KDKA+” and will air on the station’s free over the signal as well as on pay TV providers and the station’s CBS News Pittsburgh streamer.

Jessica Guay will anchor the newscast when it launches Jan. 8, 2023, with Ray Petelin on weather.

Instead of the station’s main news set, Guay will anchor from the newsroom, which was renovated in 2023 as part of the station’s “KDKA 2.0” initiative. 

Plans call for her to be stationed near the circular assignment desk in the middle of the space, making it possible to interact with assignment desk staffers.

Sister stations KCBS and KCAL in Los Angeles debuted a new studio in January 2023 that features an in-studio assignment desk that allows talent to interact with staffers. The setup is used on broadcast across both KCBS and KCAL, which was not part of the CW affiliation realignment. 

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Motion Graphics

WTVD

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The implementation so far appears largely the same as at its sister stations, though with a notable distinction that the station is the only one in the group that doesn’t have a logo with at least the suggestion of a circle outside of the network logo.

Instead, WTVD, which brands on air as “ABC 11 Eyewitness News,” has a blocked italic “11,” so the logo entrances tend to shift the circular swirl animation to focus on the smaller ABC globe logo in the lower right of the numeral.

The graphics package, designed by Vivid Zero and driven by unspecified research findings from SmithGeiger, first debuted at WLS in Chicago in June 2023.

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The chopper was being operated for 6ABC’s Action News with a photographer and pilot on board around 8 p.m. local time.

The duo was returning from an assignment near Jersey Shore when it crashed in Washington Township, New Jersey.

The crash site is in a remote area of Wharton State Forest and preliminary data shows that the chopper lost elevation twice in the time leading up to the crash. Data also shows it struck trees as it dropped out of the air.

The victims of the crash have been identified as pilot Monroe Smith, 67, and the photographer Christopher Dougherty, 45. Both have been part of the Action News family for “years.”

Other staffers are mourning the loss.

“Our hearts are just broken for these men. They’re broken for their families,” reporter Katherine Scott said on air. “We just can’t believe this has happened.”

So far, both the FAA and NTSB have been dispatched to the scene. The cause of the accident is so far unknown. 

Once investigators complete an on-scene survey, the wreckage will be transported to a secure facility for further inspection and analysis. 

The craft, which is branded as Chopper 6, is an American Eurocopter AS-350A-STAR.

Like many newsgathering helicopters in the U.S., the station does not own the craft directly. Instead, it contracts with U.S. Helicopters Inc. to manage the operate the helicopter.

WPVI reporter that U.S. Helicopters has reached out to the victims’ families.

Unfortunately, crashes involving news helicopters are no stranger to TV newsrooms around the world, so much so that Wikipedia has a page dedicated to a list of them.

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Previously, the station was known on air as “NBC 12” and “12 News.”

Starting the week of Dec. 11, 2023, it is now known as “12 On Your Side,” a name that incorporates its previous “On Your Side” tagline. 

The station has updated its website address to 12onyourside.com (it was previously nbc12.com). 

Its social media handles were also updated.

The old WWBT logo.

Another notable update is that the station logo has been updated to remove the NBC peacock. 

The logo throughout most of the station’s version of the GrayONE graphics package has been updated. 

KMOV switches to ‘First Alert 4’ branding for entire news operation

The move follows the rebranding at fellow Gray station KMOV in St. Louis, Missouri, which switched to “First Alert 4” for its news branding and domain name the same week as WWBT.

The St. Louis changes also saw the network logo removed from the station logo, in KMOV’s case it was the CBS eye.

Neither WWBT or KMOV changed or dropped network affiliations.

It’s not uncommon for stations to bounce back and forth between using network logos and branding and not. The shifts can sometimes be driven by how well the network schedule is performing or simply the whims of management. 

The removal of network icons from station logos also allows stations to create a more standalone, local brand, which can be key in the current environment of numerous choices for consuming video content. 

Gray’s use of alternate domain names feels similar to a late 1990s trend when Hearst-owned stations used the domain schema The(CityName)Channel.com for their digital presence. 

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Emily Matson, who has been at sister stations WICU and WSEE for 17 years, died after stepping in front of an oncoming train, according to local sources.

Her death has been tentatively ruled a suicide.

Matson originally produced morning newscasts before becoming an on-air crime reporter. She eventually became co-anchor of the station’s 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts.

If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-TALK (8255) or chat online or via WhatsApp. You can also text HOME to 741741.

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The station, which was known as simply “News 4” for decades, now brands its newscasts as “First Alert 4.”

It’s important to note that, in this case, the “First Alert 4” branding is for the entire news operation. For some time now, “First Alert” has been a popular weather brand used at stations across the country, and typically was meant to conjure the image of the station’s ability to provide early warnings of severe weather.

With this new name KMOV is applying its ability to “alert” its viewers of all types of important information, including weather and traffic, two franchises that have been traditionally more linked to the phrase “First Alert.”

Along with the rebranding, KMOV also moved to a new building and unveiled a new set, which NewscastStudio will have more coverage of later.

Gray Television brings visual cohesion to stations with GrayONE graphics

The station also made the transition to the GrayONE shared graphics package and migrated its website to firstalert4.com, but did not update its social media handles (on X, formerly known as Twitter, the handle @firstalert4 appears to be taken by a third party).

Along with the new name comes a new logo. 

The design includes a color shift to red and black, along with a new “4” icon. It also drops the CBS eye.

WANF’s ‘Atlanta News First’ logo that debuted in September 2022. WANF and KMOV are both owned by Gray Television. WANF was previously known as WGCL after a long-abandoned ‘George Clear News’ branding strategy. 

The updated logo’s font appears to match that used at Gray’s Atlanta station, WANF, which rebranded as “Atlanta News First” in September 2022. The two stations also obviously share the theme of “First.”

KMOV does not, however, replace the “I” in “First” with a glyph stylized more as the numeral “1,” likely to avoid confusion with the “4.”

It does, however, retain the stylized “F” in that word and also leverages a similar color scheme. 

The new KMOV logo eliminates any places where a letter slices off part of another one, like the “K” did to the “M” in the station’s 2019 logo, shown above.

In fact, the station call letters no longer appear prominently in many lockups of the logo seen so far.

The new KMOV logo features a “4” that shares many characteristics used in both the 2019 version and pre-2019 blue boxed version, though with a notable difference — the vertical stroke of the “4” is now interrupted by a slighty horizontal gap just above the crossbar.

This change gives the logo not only a new, unique look but also sense of forward motion and urgency, which is in line with the “First Alert” moniker. 

In September 2023, Gray’s WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina, also updated its logo to feature more diagonal elements and a wider sans serif typeface like the one used at WANF and now KMOV.

WBTV had been used the “First Alert Weather” branding prior to the 2023 changes, which also included switching over to GrayONE. 

The post KMOV switches to ‘First Alert 4’ branding for entire news operation appeared first on NewscastStudio.

During the NBC station’s 10 p.m. newscast, the video wall behind the anchor desk was displaying a view of the Dallas cityscape.

Over anchor Katy Blakey’s shoulder the letters “WFAA” could be seen fairly clearly in a vertical arrangement.

Those red letters are installed on the side of WFAA’s tower near the ABC affiliate’s 606 Young Street studios.

The green horizontal lighting installed on the facade of the Omni Dallas Hotel is also prominently visible. 

WFAA forecaster Jesse Hawila took notice of the appearance of his station’s call letters on a competitor’s air. 

While the video wall background is obviously meant to showcase the city’s skyline in a realistic manner, it is a bit odd that the station would chose to use a feed that prominently features a competitor’s brand.

In some cases, stations own and operate the cameras that are used to showcase local conditions and feed video wall backgrounds, but in other cases they may be shared with other organizations. Other live cameras can also be positioned in partnership with the building or property it is installed at, sometimes with a co-branding agreement between the owner and station.

It’s not clear who controls the camera KXAS opted to use in this shot or if it could have been repositioned to not include the WFAA letters. During other newscasts since Hawila’s post, a similar view has been used but the WFAA letters aren’t quite as prominent. 

Often these types of setups are PTZ models so the station can remotely adjust the framing as needed.

Video wall backgrounds have been “photobombed” by competitors in the past, such as when WMAQ showed off a WBBM truck behind an anchor, but that case would have been less difficult to anticipate. 

Live video feeds behind anchors and keyed behind forecasters have been invaded by a variety of wildlife over the years, including bugs and birds, who often end up appearing larger than life since they end up landing close to the camera lens.

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A different segment airs each day within the local newscasts of CBS-owned stations, culminating in an hour-long special, “On the Dot with David Schechter,” that will air and stream on CBS Stations starting Friday, Dec. 8.

Schechter, a CBS environmental correspondent, is also hosting the entire series.

“Warming Signs” is a collaboration, led by the CBS Local News Innovation Lab, between specialized climate-trained journalists and meteorologists at each CBS-owned station.

As part of the week-long project, local climate stories relevant to respective CBS-owned markets will air in the local newscasts in Baltimore, Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento and Texas.

The week-long series will feature daily segments from Norway by Schechter, including:

• Measuring melting: Scientists on Svalbard are closely gauging the rate of glacier melt to project potential rises in U.S. sea levels.
• More methane: Despite U.S. efforts to curb greenhouse gases, melting glaciers in Svalbard are exacerbating the issue in unexpected ways.
• Arctic renewables: Pioneering renewable energy experiments are underway in Svalbard’s unforgiving arctic conditions, exploring its viability in the coldest climates.
• Avalanche safety: Svalbard is pioneering early warning systems to prevent avalanches, potentially benefiting global safety measures.
• Disappearing ice: Svalbard’s lack of freezing sea ice, a consequence of rapid Arctic warming, could impact winter weather patterns across the United States.

Complementing Schechter’s Norwegian reports, each CBS Station will produce local climate impact stories that will air within their respective newscast focusing on the following:

• Coastal markets: The rising sea levels’ impact on communities and adaptation strategies in the face of relentless climate change.
• Inland markets: Shedding light on the escalating unpredictability of winter weather and its repercussions on local populations.

“On the Dot” will air at the following times:

• Saturday, Dec. 9, 12 a.m., KCBS Los Angeles
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 12 a.m.., KTVT Dallas
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 12:05 a.m., WCBS New York
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 12:05 a.m., KDKA Pittsburgh
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 6 p.m., WLNY New York
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 6 p.m., KOVR Sacramento
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 6 p.m., WOTG Tampa
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 7 p.m., KTXA Dallas
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 7 p.m., KPIX Bay Area
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 11 p.m., WBBM Chicago
• Saturday, Dec. 9, 11:35., KYW Philadelphia
• Sunday, Dec. 10, 9 a.m., WSBK Boston
• Sunday, Dec. 10., 5 p.m., KSTW Seattle
• Sunday, Dec. 10., 5 p.m., WBFA Miami
• Sunday, Dec. 10., 6 p.m., WPSG Philadelphia 
• Sunday, Dec. 10., 7 p.m., KCAL Los Angeles

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