Tis the Season for New News Sets
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Tis The Season for newly unveiled local news sets. To kick off the November ratings period, local set makeovers got big reveals.
WRAL 5 (NBC) in Raleigh unveiled its new state-of-the-art news studio and set. Courtesy of the FX Design Group. WRAL leaves its previous newsplex-newsroom set behind in favor of a neighboring studio. With WRAL being among earliest stations in the country to produce newscasts in high-definition, it comes upgrade to 4K HD studio cameras.
WSMV 4 (NBC) in Nashville unveiled its new set by Z Space Creative. Z Space did the set for its Phoenix sister station KPHO 5 in 2017. Like KPHO, WSMV also has on its anchor desk what looks like a popped out LED box ticker display. There's a way to tell whether this may show up at other Meredith stations that could be due for set makeovers soon.
WITI 6 (Fox) in Milwaukee, though not a brand new set, but modifications made to their FX Design Group set from 2013. The biggest change is the home-base (or main anchor desk area) getting a seamless LED screen display behind the anchor desk. WITI is also working on changes to the WakeUp set.
KTHV 11 (CBS) in Little Rock also unveiled its new set by Innovative Environments, the same company that did new KHOU 11 set for its new broadcast home that debuted earlier this year. TEGNA appears to be stepping away from the Jack Morton PDG designs that were recently rolled out to other stations between 2016 and 2019.
Stations due to receive news set makeovers or could benefit from major upgrade...
Fox O&O KDFW 4 in Dallas still has yet to see a makeover.
It'll be interesting to see whether CBS O&O's KYW 3 in Philly, KTVT 11 in Dallas, KPIX 5 in San Francisco, and KCNC 4 in Denver could be slated for makeovers in 2020, and if they go the route of their NYC, LA, Chicago, Miami, and Sacramento sister stations in terms of identical set design.
With the Nexstar-Tribune merger recently completed, whether we may see major changes made to former Tribune stations needing TLC. WGNO 26 (ABC) in New Orleans could benefit from a makeover. Nexstar is reportedly mulling plans to relocate WREG 3 (CBS) in Memphis to a new location. And if Nexstar could and might also have plans to make some upgrades to a couple of legacy Media General stations, including WFLA 8 (NBC) in Tampa Bay, WJBF 6 (ABC) in Augusta, and WSPA 7 (CBS) in Greenville.
It'll also be interesting to see whether we could see TEGNA planning new sets for several additional stations in 2020 by Innovative Environments, including newly acquired stations from the recent Gray-Raycom merger, and stations acquired that Nexstar-Tribune merger couldn't keep.
