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Random WMAQ Thread


24994J

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26 minutes ago, Spring Rubber said:

Tonight's game was flexed to Sunday Night Football about 4 weeks ago. With such comparatively short notice, WMAQ did not have their weeknight crew tonight. However, with Michelle Relerford still on maternity leave, they did have Marion Brooks co-anchor tonight so that they wouldn't have a solo newscast like they've been doing on weekends for the past three months.

To be honest four or even one weeks notice is enough time to get the weeknight team in, provided they aren’t on vacation.  If a station can get them in unscheduled on say a Saturday if there’s major breaking news I don’t see how four weeks makes it harder. 

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7 hours ago, rkolsen said:

To be honest four or even one weeks notice is enough time to get the weeknight team in, provided they aren’t on vacation.  If a station can get them in unscheduled on say a Saturday if there’s major breaking news I don’t see how four weeks makes it harder. 

I guess it's just to be considerate to the weeknight team? I'm sure they would bring them in for major breaking news, but in the case of SNF, they must like to have several months' notice to bring them in.

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  • 2 weeks later...

the station has announced that "New Year's Eve Live in Chicago" will returned for the 2019 edition. Marion Brooks, Chris Hush and Siafa Lewis are among of the confirmed hosts for the event, with KISS FM's Fred, Big 10's Ally Strum and former "Windy City Live" contributor Ji Suk Yi serves as co-hosts which is will be airing 2 weeks from this Monday.

In other news, congratulations to meteorologist Kalee Dionne and her husband Johnathan Pair on adopting her daughter Mila Pair yesterday. Kalee was missing in action from the news desk from several weeks now.

https://www.robertfeder.com/2018/12/19/robservations-countdown-shows-battle-new-years-eve-viewers/

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Looks like they've done some very minor studio upgrades. They've upgraded the TV in the stand-up area to a much bigger TV. Also, the weather center TV's look bigger to the left. The other day they had Brant in the weather center and they had two videos of conditions to the left. The standard weather center graphic with temperature underneath and to the right they had a big picture of the skylines. I don't remember the monitors to the left being flush with the background for such a big monitor array. 

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It looks like, after upgrading the anchor backdrop this summer, they've installed the same seamless video paneling in the two other studio areas, making the studio virtually free of any traditional monitors.

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bandicam 2018-12-21 16-46-13-434.png

Edited by 24994J
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22 minutes ago, NBC 5 Chicago said:

Looks like they’ve added another member to the NBC 5 Storm Team. Kristen Kirchhaine debuted tonight. Patrick Fazzio announced it during the 10pm news tonight. Did this fly under the radar? I don’t remember seeing anything about her. 

Just temporary. The holiday weekend combining with Kalee and Alicia's respective leaves means things are thin.

 

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Have you watching the 2019 edition of "New Year's Eve Live in Chicago" 3 days ago? the full fireworks show and countdown was incredible unlike the 2018 edition which has been criticized for showing the final 30 seconds of the countdown coming back from the commercial.  Some of the station's personalities Marion Brooks and Siafa Lewis was in the Hilton Chicago, while Chris Hush was at the Drake. Zoraida Sambolin, Rob Stafford and Allison Rosati had also made cameos via pre-recorded greetings along with national NBC News personalities including Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Al Roker, Kathie Lee Gifford and Lester Holt.

Edited by LinCruzNYC2014
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  • 2 weeks later...

WMAQ is using the Weather Center as a temp set right now.

 

Might be worth a new thread if this is indeed a sign of a new set on the way (which I think it might be) Since it's such a small studio, they might be able to get things done in time for sweeps, but then again, they didn't exactly get their current set done in time for sweeps in 2012, so maybe it doesn't matter to them.

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4 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

WMAQ is using the Weather Center as a temp set right now.

 

Might be worth a new thread if this is indeed a sign of a new set on the way (which I think it might be) Since it's such a small studio, they might be able to get things done in time for sweeps, but then again, they didn't exactly get their current set done in time for sweeps in 2012, so maybe it doesn't matter to them.

 

interesting and somewhat strange that they changed the standup area nearly a year ago and are just now (possibly) working on other parts of the set. 

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5 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

WMAQ is using the Weather Center as a temp set right now.

 

Might be worth a new thread if this is indeed a sign of a new set on the way (which I think it might be) Since it's such a small studio, they might be able to get things done in time for sweeps, but then again, they didn't exactly get their current set done in time for sweeps in 2012, so maybe it doesn't matter to them.

From the videos online it appeared they used the regular desk at 5pm. If I was a betting man I’d say they’re getting the LED wall.  However isn’t there another place they could use temporarily like a newsroom desk?

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16 minutes ago, rkolsen said:

From the videos online it appeared they used the regular desk at 5pm. If I was a betting man I’d say they’re getting the LED wall.  However isn’t there another place they could use temporarily like a newsroom desk?

As I understand it, WMAQ doesn't really have space for anything. That's why their current set is so small. IIRC, in 2012, their current studio was built inside of the newsroom where their former newsroom set was. At the time, they were lucky to have the streetside "Studio 5" in a completely separate building where they could temporarily broadcast all of their newscasts while the main studio was constructed. Now that they no longer have that lease, the only conceivable way to remodel their set is to reconstruct it piecemeal and broadcast from whatever portion of the studio that's not currently under construction.

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23 minutes ago, rkolsen said:

From the videos online it appeared they used the regular desk at 5pm. If I was a betting man I’d say they’re getting the LED wall.  However isn’t there another place they could use temporarily like a newsroom desk?

 

I only doubt the LED wall, as they just upgraded the "windows" last summer. The new screens were more upright, and didn't have a glare like the old ones. Here is a pic from that weekend, before they reinstalled the metal accents...

 

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Also, Spring Rubber is right. There is so little room in that newsroom for a temp set, their flash cam setup is virtually right behind the set wall. Compare that position to how the open newsroom set was laid out (which is in the same spot as they are now)...

 

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Well hearing that their set was installed in the newsroom explains the one image I saw on social media where a corner of the newsroom was cornered off with stage curtains. But other images I saw it looked like the studio was in a regular room.

I am intrigued as to what NBC plans on doing with some of the empty sound stages.  They could probably divide it into two and have two decent size ones for both stations. 

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That corner of the newsroom has been an open "studio" since the building was built. The current set just enclosed the space and forced the newsroom employees to look at the back of a set all day.

 

It's extremely tiny and oddly shaped, and if I recall correctly some of the weird curved plasterwork from the original newsroom design still exists above it. 

 

They've been pretty hard set on keeping the two actual studios free for outside production. If they DID build a new set, they'd probably have to build a temp set in one of them while the newsroom "studio" was replaced.

 

Also, you can totally rent monitors like the ones behind the desk, so those replacements from last year could totally be getting replaced by a LED wall.

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