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Worst set EVER


FirstNews8

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mmm. Fake marble!

 

This is from the station that my school, the University of Alabama, owns and operates. Note that this is a fully professional, commercial station owned by the university, with the largest audience of any station in state, so one would assume they would have a decent set at least. Read my notes on the video by actually going to the YouTube URL.

 

[YT][/YT]

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Eh, it's not a lovely set, but it's not horrible. I guess when you compare it to a similar setup like they have at KOMU, yeah it's pretty bad. The fake marble is interesting, haha.

 

I remember I interviewed at that station about 12 years ago, right when they were launching that newscast on Channel 49.

 

Just curious, how does that station have the largest audience in the state? I would think 33/40 or Fox 6 would have that title.

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Eh, it's not a lovely set, but it's not horrible. I guess when you compare it to a similar setup like they have at KOMU, yeah it's pretty bad. The fake marble is interesting, haha.

 

I remember I interviewed at that station about 12 years ago, right when they were launching that newscast on Channel 49.

 

Just curious, how does that station have the largest audience in the state? I would think 33/40 or Fox 6 would have that title.

 

No, all stations in the Birmingham DMA are only available on cable operators within the viewing area, that is, the counties that are in the DMA. Also, air signals from Birmingham can only picked up from about a three or four county radius. WVUA operates on all major cable providers in the state, not to mention that anybody within the state of Alabama with Dish and DirecTV can get it. They also repeat their signal to a transmitter in Birmingham (WUOA channel 23) and on low power channel 7 here in Tuscaloosa. So now they have audiences in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Annison/Oxford, and further south and north of the Birmingham DMA because of cable and satellite.

 

If you're wondering, I'm a broadcast news major at UA, so that's how I know. If I can find out the exact audience numbers from one of the sales execs that I know, I'll let you know.

 

What is really interesting about WVUA is that I'm beginning to think that if they somehow can get a full power transmitter here in Tuscaloosa, they will probably become an affiliate of one of the major networks and possibily break the market lock. Maybe just a CW affiliate, since our CW affiliate no longer does news. It's just interesting because when ABC 33/40 bought the WCFT (Tuscaloosa) and WJSU (Anniston) transmitters, they basically locked the markets together. Prior to them doing so, I believe that Tuscaloosa and Annison had their own DMAs. Not sure about that though.

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No, all stations in the Birmingham DMA are only available on cable operators within the viewing area, that is, the counties that are in the DMA. Also, air signals from Birmingham can only picked up from about a three or four county radius. WVUA operates on all major cable providers in the state, not to mention that anybody within the state of Alabama with Dish and DirecTV can get it. They also repeat their signal to a transmitter in Birmingham (WUOA channel 23) and on low power channel 7 here in Tuscaloosa. So now they have audiences in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Annison/Oxford, and further south and north of the Birmingham DMA because of cable and satellite.

 

If you're wondering, I'm a broadcast news major at UA, so that's how I know. If I can find out the exact audience numbers from one of the sales execs that I know, I'll let you know.

 

What is really interesting about WVUA is that I'm beginning to think that if they somehow can get a full power transmitter here in Tuscaloosa, they will probably become an affiliate of one of the major networks and possibily break the market lock. Maybe just a CW affiliate, since our CW affiliate no longer does news. It's just interesting because when ABC 33/40 bought the WCFT (Tuscaloosa) and WJSU (Anniston) transmitters, they basically locked the markets together. Prior to them doing so, I believe that Tuscaloosa and Annison had their own DMAs. Not sure about that though.

 

Yeah, I remember when that went down... that made for a HUGE market... geographically speaking.

 

I guess when it comes to the WVUA deal, I was thinking audience as in viewers, not as in potential households.

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Eh, it's not a lovely set, but it's not horrible. I guess when you compare it to a similar setup like they have at KOMU, yeah it's pretty bad. The fake marble is interesting, haha.

 

I remember I interviewed at that station about 12 years ago, right when they were launching that newscast on Channel 49.

 

Just curious, how does that station have the largest audience in the state? I would think 33/40 or Fox 6 would have that title.

 

KOMU has a new HD set that was debuted back in April..

 

http://newscaststudio.com/setstudio/komu2

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Yes, we know. This is a thread for the WORST sets ever, not the nicest. haha. Even though KOMU's isn't AMAZING.

 

Haha agreed. I'd still take the set you guys have at Bama over what we had at my last station in Georgia. Two words: sponge painting. I'll have to find a picture of that. Even with the lackluster set, to me (who doesn't know that much) it seems like the university pumps a decent amount of money into that station.

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OK, found a pic of the WRBL (Columbus, GA) set from 2000-2007. It's an OTS shot, so you can't see much. But the sponge painting in the background gives you a hint at the craptastic-ness of it all. Also, I had hair and glasses. I'm not sure which looks worse, me or the set.

sponge.jpg.05a2408dd4d83a2aac83d19656bbee3b.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

The ITV regional sets since 2004 haven't changed much really.

 

http://www.packofseven.com/tvnt/attachment.php?attachmentid=747&stc=1&d=1263770644

 

http://www.packofseven.com/tvnt/attachment.php?attachmentid=748&stc=1&d=1263770644

 

Now the walls are yellow and the sofas black. Makes very little difference really, except at breakfast time during the regional optouts in GMTV. The yellow walls actually look quite good then, and in keeping. Otherwise, the 2004 look was much better. But to be honest, the 2009 national set is worse than anything else I have seen for a long time. Even the old 1999 ITV News set didn't look quite this bad. That one was real, this one is virtual, and they could make changes to it to make it better quite easily.

ITVregionalset2004.jpg.d35b0e4001486f10cf2b220aa5dba737.jpg

ITVregionalset2006.jpg.38c249856bf33205ab1f3f3f8dd6714f.jpg

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Chiming in with my first post here (hi there, all!) and nominating the original WSYM Lansing set that was used from 1997 until the 2004 news operation agreement with WILX. I can't seem to find any pictures of the full thing, but you can still see at least part of it when Fox News interviews someone from their studios. What you DON'T see during those interviews is a cartoonish mural of the Lansing skyline that served as the backdrop behind the anchor desk for all those years, not to mention the goofy-looking clock that was built into the front of that desk... all of which was surrounded by yellow and red accents that were horribly faded by the time they moved into the WILX studio, so much so that the red looked like a maroonish purple and the yellow almost looked tan. It was over-the-top and silly looking even in '97. To have used it as long as they did was a testament to either how much someone in charge liked it or how little Journal wanted to pay to replace it with something more serious and appropriate.

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  • 7 years later...

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I have found the worst set ever:

 

wjfw10p09142007_03twoshot.jpg

wjfw10p09142007_19threeshot.jpg

The station is WJFW in Wausau, WI. I don’t know what they were thinking when they decided to go with that log cabin theme.

 

Compare to the set they had before:

wjfw11pSa08212004_16threeshot.jpg

wjfw11pSa08212004_04twoshot.jpg

Now why couldn’t they have stuck with this one?

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The station is WJFW in Wausau, WI. I don’t know what they were thinking when they decided to go with that log cabin theme.

 

They're in the Northwoods and branded that way, so they leaned into it. They've gotten a more normal set (and lost the pine tree 12 logo) since then, but don't forget in Wausau they have a station where bringing back their Olde English 7 would be awesome to viewers. It's Wisconsin Quirky with a capital 'Q'.

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Sorry to bump such an old thread, but I have found the worst set ever:

(photos snipped)

The station is WJFW in Wausau, WI. I don’t know what they were thinking when they decided to go with that log cabin theme.

 

Technically, WJFW is based in Rhinelander, quite a ways north of Wausau (but still part of the market). I seem to recall that there was some local sponsorship/design credit with that set when it was in use; it's been years since I (think I) saw it when I stayed in the area.

 

Seeing their current video, I'd dare say the 2004 set is better than the current one!

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Technically, WJFW is based in Rhinelander, quite a ways north of Wausau (but still part of the market). I seem to recall that there was some local sponsorship/design credit with that set when it was in use; it's been years since I (think I) saw it when I stayed in the area.

 

Seeing their current video, I'd dare say the 2004 set is better than the current one!

 

Their website is atrocious. The web designer oughta be ashamed of themselves.

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I just clicked on that link. Was that site designed in 2004 or something?

 

Must be. Any site that has THIS is 2018 is a site I don't want to go to.

 

Screenshot_20180106-163756.thumb.png.10cfaa9a2ce042b4135d2be3b8ce8a43.png

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Looks a bit like the set in a box that WDJT had prior to the current set. (I'm not saying that's a good thing, mind you.)

Almost thought it was (seriously though, WDJT seems like the kind of station that would try to sell off their old set), but WDJT's was the version with the hard angles in the home base backdrop, and not the curves.

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