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TV news originating from the newsroom

seatownmedia

seatownmedia

I wasn't sure where to place this thread, but classic tv seems to be the best fit. Was watching a Sundance "The Set" repeat of the Mary Tyler Moore Show (Season 4, Episode 7...1973) that dealt with the idea that a new trend in local news was to broadcast it from the actual newsroom. In this episode, it failed. But many stations in the 70's tried this format for their local news and were successful with it.

I believe the CBS stations WBBM Chicago and KNXT in Los Angeles were a couple of large market stations that attempted this approach. WBBM lasted longer than KNXT (now KCBS-TV), but this format expanded quickly and many copycats sprung up in the 70's and well into the 80's. KING-TV Seattle experimented with a "newsroom" format in the mid-70's but was quickly replaced with a traditional desk set after about a year. KIRO-TV (CBS affiliate) in Seattle went to a similar format to WBBM in 1981, and lasted for about a decade.

What other markets went this route, and have any continued to today?

WBBM, perhaps the pioneer of this format, had dropped it by the early 90's. (Although, KTLA apparently tried it as early as the 60's, but failed).
 
My foggy brain may be totally mis-remembering, but I'm thinking either WLW-D/WDTN or WHIO-TV in Dayton had one of their newscasts 5:30 news from the newsroom and called it The Newsroom, then went to the main set for the 6pm. I'm not sure of the timing or if I imagined the whole thing
 
I also seem to remember a newscast in Baltimore in the late 70's-early 80's originated from the newsroom...I want to say WBAL-TV 11, but I may be wrong.
 
About 1974, KPIX San Francisco (CBS), which was getting beaten badly in local news ratings by KGO-TV (ABC) jettisoned anchor Ron Magers, hired a new staff, and decided to make it look like they were broadcasting from the news room. Really, I think it was just a newsroom looking set, with battered desks, monitors, people walking back and forth. They hired an airhead pretty-boy anchor named Gene Tuck, and a "super-fan" type amateur sports anchor who was locally popular on sports-talk radio.

The whole thing was a major flop, and KGO-TV continued to dominate the ratings. Ironically, Magers went to Chicago where he became the highly rated and distinguished veteran of Chicago TV news.
 
KSAZ still does this with Ron Hoon during the Morning Show.

I still miss the TTY background sound track.
 
WPTA Fort Wayne built a newsroom set in the early 80s (I believe when they were under Pulitzer Broadcasting ownership) and went to "21 Alive" on everything.
Last year after being purchased by Quincy Newspapers they finally retired the set. They air ABC on 21.1 and NBC on 21.2 and each has it's own newscasts with almost independent reporters (they share almost all stories, but national/international comes from their respective networks.)
They also own the CW affiliate on 33.1 and I wish they'd put NBC back on it...get a little separation on programming, but they seem happy with this arrangement.
 
LKellerIII said:
About 1974, KPIX San Francisco (CBS), which was getting beaten badly in local news ratings by KGO-TV (ABC) jettisoned anchor Ron Magers, hired a new staff, and decided to make it look like they were broadcasting from the news room. Really, I think it was just a newsroom looking set, with battered desks, monitors, people walking back and forth. They hired an airhead pretty-boy anchor named Gene Tuck, and a "super-fan" type amateur sports anchor who was locally popular on sports-talk radio.

The whole thing was a major flop, and KGO-TV continued to dominate the ratings. Ironically, Magers went to Chicago where he became the highly rated and distinguished veteran of Chicago TV news.
Click to expand...

Also in S.F., somewhere around '86 or '87, KRON (NBC) turned its cameras in the opposite direction of its previous set, and went with the 'newsroom' look(part of an attempt to 'soften' the aesthetics of the newscast while 'focusing on what matters'. They aslo ditche the usual canned generic '80s news theme for a more 'orchestral' piece.
 
onairb2014 said:
Also in S.F., somewhere around '86 or '87, KRON (NBC) turned its cameras in the opposite direction of its previous set, and went with the 'newsroom' look(part of an attempt to 'soften' the aesthetics of the newscast while 'focusing on what matters'. They aslo ditche the usual canned generic '80s news theme for a more 'orchestral' piece.
Click to expand...

I am remembering a KRON (NBC) set in the late 80's with a "library-style" set. There seemed to be bookcases in the background. I can't place the exact year(s), but they used it for multiple years as I recall.

You can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0rELEZvseg
 
A lot of stations did variations of NewsCenter4 or NewsCenter5 (I'm sure it was one consultant who owned that concept), and they rode it a long time. But at some point in the 90s, TV stations started preparing for the arrival of HD TV. I started to hear news directors say that those old sets and desks just looked awful with high definition TV. So the budgets got ramped up for more chrome, marble, and lots of flat-screen TVs all over. Plus the well-placed laptop on the counter. That became the new look.
 
TheBigA said:
A lot of stations did variations of NewsCenter4 or NewsCenter5 (I'm sure it was one consultant who owned that concept), and they rode it a long time. But at some point in the 90s, TV stations started preparing for the arrival of HD TV. I started to hear news directors say that those old sets and desks just looked awful with high definition TV. So the budgets got ramped up for more chrome, marble, and lots of flat-screen TVs all over. Plus the well-placed laptop on the counter. That became the new look.
Click to expand...

Indeed. That is kind of what I am getting at, these newsroom-type sets seem few and far between today. They were certainly the rage in the 70's and 80's. I forgot to mention one of my Northwest neighbors, KOIN-TV (CBS) out of Portland, OR, who ran their news from a "newsroom" set from the mid-70's well into the mid 90's. As others have mentioned, it doesn't really matter if it was the actual newsroom or not, just the appearance of it being a newsroom was enough. Perception is reality.

I will harken back on why I started this thread. Watching an MTM show from '73 that used this as the main plot! As I posted earlier, in the show, it was a complete failure. Today, it seems to be a complete failure, but 45 years later!
 
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seatownmedia said:
Watching an MTM show from '73 that used this as the main plot! As I posted earlier, in the show, it was a complete failure. Today, it seems to be a complete failure, but 45 years later!
Click to expand...

I once did a studio tour in LA and saw a few of those old sitcom sets, and they all looked so plastic and fake in person. I'm sure the arrival of 65" HDTVs changed the way things looked forever.
 
TheBigA said:
I once did a studio tour in LA and saw a few of those old sitcom sets, and they all looked so plastic and fake in person. I'm sure the arrival of 65" HDTVs changed the way things looked forever.
Click to expand...

KGO-TV in San Francisco broadcast from the newsroom for quite awhile - about a year or so ago. IIRC, it lasted for weeks. It was an odd newsroom, too - kind of long and narrow in back of the anchors...not a good look, aesthetically speaking. But they ended up on a spanking new high-tech set, so I assume that there was some kind of delay in construction that kept them in the news room for so long.
 
TheBigA said:
I once did a studio tour in LA and saw a few of those old sitcom sets, and they all looked so plastic and fake in person. I'm sure the arrival of 65" HDTVs changed the way things looked forever.
Click to expand...

Sets, maybe. But I'm noticing now with my big HDTV (42 inches, but still bigger than any old analog TV I ever owned), that often you can now see clearly how much make-up they trowel onto the actors' faces. Sometimes, it looks ludicrous...kind of like that one secretary in an office we've all seen who wears WAAAY to much make-up, and everybody seems to know it but her. That kind of look, but of course, being TV, you see it on the male actors, too.
 
KMOV-TV in St. Louis back when it was KMOX-TV used newsroom set in early-mid 70's. I think back then they used a teletype sound effect as their theme and the newscast was called "Newsroom".
 
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