Action News 5 debuts new set, 2006
A few of you may be familiar with my next* “hobby” beyond retail, especially if you followed me back in my early days of uploading when I posted a sled slew of pictures related to the subject: TV news. Specifically, that refers to my local station of choice, WMC Action News 5 – Memphis’s NBC affiliate.
Though you might not make the comparison at first, I personally think retail and TV news share a quality or two. Namely, I’m talking about the presentation. In TV news, you’ve got both the on-air graphics which appear on your screen, and the physical sets constructed in the studios out of which the stations broadcast. Both of those designs change periodically (the former most frequently), not entirely unlike remodels at retail establishments.
At its core, what I enjoy about the retail documentation I do via my photos and descriptions on flickr and my blog is being able to show and write about the changes that take place to a store’s “look” – its décor package, mainly, but other things as well. I first got into TV news as an interest many years before retail, so there are several aspects I like about it, but relevant to this conversation is that core similarity: the fun had in monitoring the changes that take place to the station’s “look.”
I bring all of this up here today because WMC Action News 5 debuted a brand-new set this weekend, just in time for Super Bowl 52 last night, the Olympics beginning later this week, and February sweeps this month. Over the course of January, the station broadcast out of a temporary set constructed in its newsroom while the studio underwent renovation. I figured that, in light of that development and since I’m eager to share some photos I’ve had/found anyway (!), I’d go ahead and spend this week by uploading one post a day on Action News 5.
I’ll begin today by flashing all the way back to 2006 – that would be the year that the set WMC just replaced was first introduced. (Yes, they went 11 full years without another set replacement: told you graphics were updated much more often!) As a matter of fact, the set debuted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006, according to this story from their website. Here’s the text from that article, since it’s a short read anyway:
“Wednesday, October 11th, Action News 5 introduced a whole new way to bring you the news, with the debut of a brand new news and weather set.
The new set is the culmination of weeks of planning and construction. New features, like the Pinpoint 5 Storm Tracking Center, will bring you better coverage and information than ever before in the event of severe weather.
Click the video links on the left side of this page to view a time-lapsed video of the construction of the new set, and a tour with Joe Birch of the set's features.
Then, tune in to any Action News 5 broadcast to see the new set in action.”
Unfortunately, the video links the article describes have long since been removed from the website. But I am happy to present here a few stills from the 5:00PM newscast that night, which – I’m assuming – was the first to feature the new set on-air. I saved these stills to my iPod in 2013 or 2014, and have no clue where I got them from. They do not appear to still be online today, so I’m glad I saved them when I did!
In the top two photos, you can see some angles that started the newscast (including both the anchor desk and the weather pod); beneath those are two stills from Joe Birch’s “behind the scenes” tour of the new studio and all its features (specifically, he’s exploring the weather area in the stills shown). Sadly, the brand new set that debuted this weekend (in 2018) got no such “behind the scenes” tour; only a brief mention after the forecast last night after the Super Bowl. Seems to me like that would have been a really easy target for extra hype and promotion, but WMC seems to be going a different direction in that regard as of late. (In the meantime, I can always enjoy fun, talent-heavy promos from the good ol’ days of my childhood!)
I have plenty more I could say about that, but you already stopped reading ten paragraphs ago, so I’ll stop there XD I’ll conclude this short saga with some views of the new set on Thursday, but before then I want to be sure and showcase a bit more of the now-former studio. While it wasn’t replaced for 11 years, it did have a few modifications! More on that tomorrow (at which point I’ll come back and add photo notes to this as well)…
* - And by "next," I don't mean my photostream is moving away from retail!! Just uploading a few Action News 5 photos this week... retail returns Saturday, as always :)
No copyright infringement intended, against photo owners or subjects.
Please do not repost without my permission.
Action News 5 debuts new set, 2006
A few of you may be familiar with my next* “hobby” beyond retail, especially if you followed me back in my early days of uploading when I posted a sled slew of pictures related to the subject: TV news. Specifically, that refers to my local station of choice, WMC Action News 5 – Memphis’s NBC affiliate.
Though you might not make the comparison at first, I personally think retail and TV news share a quality or two. Namely, I’m talking about the presentation. In TV news, you’ve got both the on-air graphics which appear on your screen, and the physical sets constructed in the studios out of which the stations broadcast. Both of those designs change periodically (the former most frequently), not entirely unlike remodels at retail establishments.
At its core, what I enjoy about the retail documentation I do via my photos and descriptions on flickr and my blog is being able to show and write about the changes that take place to a store’s “look” – its décor package, mainly, but other things as well. I first got into TV news as an interest many years before retail, so there are several aspects I like about it, but relevant to this conversation is that core similarity: the fun had in monitoring the changes that take place to the station’s “look.”
I bring all of this up here today because WMC Action News 5 debuted a brand-new set this weekend, just in time for Super Bowl 52 last night, the Olympics beginning later this week, and February sweeps this month. Over the course of January, the station broadcast out of a temporary set constructed in its newsroom while the studio underwent renovation. I figured that, in light of that development and since I’m eager to share some photos I’ve had/found anyway (!), I’d go ahead and spend this week by uploading one post a day on Action News 5.
I’ll begin today by flashing all the way back to 2006 – that would be the year that the set WMC just replaced was first introduced. (Yes, they went 11 full years without another set replacement: told you graphics were updated much more often!) As a matter of fact, the set debuted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006, according to this story from their website. Here’s the text from that article, since it’s a short read anyway:
“Wednesday, October 11th, Action News 5 introduced a whole new way to bring you the news, with the debut of a brand new news and weather set.
The new set is the culmination of weeks of planning and construction. New features, like the Pinpoint 5 Storm Tracking Center, will bring you better coverage and information than ever before in the event of severe weather.
Click the video links on the left side of this page to view a time-lapsed video of the construction of the new set, and a tour with Joe Birch of the set's features.
Then, tune in to any Action News 5 broadcast to see the new set in action.”
Unfortunately, the video links the article describes have long since been removed from the website. But I am happy to present here a few stills from the 5:00PM newscast that night, which – I’m assuming – was the first to feature the new set on-air. I saved these stills to my iPod in 2013 or 2014, and have no clue where I got them from. They do not appear to still be online today, so I’m glad I saved them when I did!
In the top two photos, you can see some angles that started the newscast (including both the anchor desk and the weather pod); beneath those are two stills from Joe Birch’s “behind the scenes” tour of the new studio and all its features (specifically, he’s exploring the weather area in the stills shown). Sadly, the brand new set that debuted this weekend (in 2018) got no such “behind the scenes” tour; only a brief mention after the forecast last night after the Super Bowl. Seems to me like that would have been a really easy target for extra hype and promotion, but WMC seems to be going a different direction in that regard as of late. (In the meantime, I can always enjoy fun, talent-heavy promos from the good ol’ days of my childhood!)
I have plenty more I could say about that, but you already stopped reading ten paragraphs ago, so I’ll stop there XD I’ll conclude this short saga with some views of the new set on Thursday, but before then I want to be sure and showcase a bit more of the now-former studio. While it wasn’t replaced for 11 years, it did have a few modifications! More on that tomorrow (at which point I’ll come back and add photo notes to this as well)…
* - And by "next," I don't mean my photostream is moving away from retail!! Just uploading a few Action News 5 photos this week... retail returns Saturday, as always :)
No copyright infringement intended, against photo owners or subjects.
Please do not repost without my permission.