My local NBC O&O has switched to Look S likely just a week ago. When recording this on July 22nd, I happened to capture the last 12:00 noon broadcast as they align with other O&Os to a 11:00 block. The following day was basically a repeat of Today.
The open is a bit unique, and different from the California, Miami and New York stations, so there is some customization to the stations. The graphics like previously described are a better version of Look N, but similar to Nightly News’ graphical package.
Also the customized open was the theme in many of the promos WBTS ran during the spring time and during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. There was a lot of hints a new look was coming it’s way. I can’t speak for other stations, though it should be noted.
Recently before the Olympics; WTVJ got Look S… but that awesome, kickass theme package from the summer of 2012?
It’s gone away!
Along with the set, as it matches the sterile, boring and plain crappy set.
Not to mention newer cuts of L.A. Groove has replaced that theme.
Don’t give me lip that the stories and content matters more. If you have a theatrical theme package that ruins the substance of the stories, then it cancels out and some of this Look S rollout is going to be lousy.
As Look S is rolling into NBC O&Os for it’s uniform graphics just in time for the Tokyo Games, one of their stations is in the midst of an emergent event; where graphics package changes could cause things to “look” haywire.
When NBC rolled out the gawd-awful Look N, it was in time for the Rio games in July 2016. On the day it landed to Miami’s WTVJ, there was breaking news that occurred, a shooting that targeted at a club early that morning; as that story continued into the day, an alligator attack at Disney World in Orlando broke on the same day, but had extensive coverage the following day.
Both stories were not wall to wall like the events like the apartment collapse in Surfside. As of this writing on July 7th, it appears the story is not wall-to-wall unless it warrants, but “warrants” could qualify of any presser or other catastrophic outcomes (that is highly unlikely) probably going into the rest of the month. Obviously when Tokyo begins, specifically WTVJ will most likely just stream the live events…
Normally during emergent events, any changes to a news workflow is halted. I knew someone who used to work at WCVB in Boston during April of 2013 when the station was moving into the very complex file based workflows and the Boston Marathon Bombing occurred, and they halted the transition, using the tried and true tape-based Electronic News Gathering workflow for another month or so.
The reason why I am making conjecture is that while graphics packages today are designed from other firms (NBC’s in house though), the execution at the local level are done by machines. The only user-level work is writing the lower thirds into a “template” from an over-worked producer. While Look S isn’t inherently different than Look N, there are some differences in positioning more complex titles like full screens and side shoulder graphics. If a producer doesn’t get fully trained (or even has the time given the emergent situation) the viewer may see cluttered text in places where text shouldn’t be seen.
In late June, NBC rolled out a new graphics package to it’s O&Os entitled Look S. Please click here to read more about the history of the in-house Peacock graphics. This is what Look N should’ve looked in the first place.
Resemblance of the NBC Nightly News can be seen on the lower thirds. As of this writing, KNBC, WNBC, WMAQ, KNTV in the Bay Area can be confirmed to be using the graphics. It is highly likely that NBC will try to get all stations updated by July 23rd, the start of the Tokyo Olympics. This is the first NBCU package that the Telemundo owned stations will be using as well as the English speaking NBC.
If it makes it to Boston there’s one little thing I ask for NBC to tweak… it’s theme package. 🙂
Rebuilding Local Media with building bricks and minifigures as the subjects. Also the King of Simulating Live events in Post Production™.
