If you were a kid in the 1990s and was either channel surfing or happened to see this program after The Newshour, you actually weren’t seeing things. This was the show that succeeded The Ten O Clock News on WGBH-TV Channel 2. I am not sure specifically when The Group went on air, but this was the show that covered local affairs until a lady named Emily Rooney came along by 1997. Other than Say Brother, WGBH was relying entirely on their national programming as their identity. Nearly four years later, the station would rebrand to ‘GBH (albeit on the air) then more hell would break loose from the outside looking in.
The program was blaintely recession-era production value. Hell they didn’t even change the font package on the Chyron Scribe, it was the same title package from TOCN if you look closely enough.
The animation package for The Group was pretty advanced compared to the rest of the program
Apparently Marcus Jones was able to apply as a producer for this show, according to that spring comment on YouTube, but this program had much less people behind the scenes. There wasn’t much need to do a lot of producing if there was no host. I am unsure if WGBH had gotten robotic cameras (at least on the head for Pan Tilting and Zooming.) I remember albeit vaguely another set that looked like they were in Studio A, the big one, where I thought they literally taping a nightly program on backstage. I vaguely remember the WGBH logo was on some signage, and I could’ve remembered large bins and other weird props or BTS type of storage equipment.
Obviously if The Group was so successful, there would be loads of videos on YouTube, but there’s not. The show had that much impact in the market. That show was far from a dooszy… I kid. They needed Emily Rooney and her crew more than she needed them.
That should tell you right there how desperate the station was at that point. Again this went right into ’97.
There was a reason why I was really skeptical about the reboot of the ‘GBH branding. They are one program away from being from where they were on June 1st, 1991 if the mismanagement continues.
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