And so ends the integrity of the Columbia Broadcasting System, not with a bang, but with a buyout. May Edward and Douglas and Walter be rolling in their graves at how all their work to build a titan in journalism can be near-instantly overturned.
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Agreed - watching on their streamer last night, the throw from Morning News to… a CBS-branded backlot??? was much less impressive than Times Square.
I used to be around this area a lot (and attended a taping of two of This Week Tonight there), and it’s possibly the least charming part of Hell’s Kitchen because W 57th St is a stroad, and that area is just a bit far from transport.
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I’m pretty sure that Studio 57 is on the first floor of the building to the right and that the CBSNews.com newsroom is in that single story building in the center. IIRC Chris Licht (the original CTM executive producer who went on to have an ill-fated run as head of CNN) said he wanted to break the wall between the two buildings and have a newsroom backdrop in Studio 57, but that it was too expensive, so they emulated a newsroom look in the original design with some desks and a wall of monitors in the studio. The CBS Broadcast Center is a really weird patchwork of buildings on one city block. I remember reading that Dan Rather used to complain about the rampant fly problem that his newsroom used to have, partly as a result of the bulk of the facility originally being a dairy plant.
I also agree with the post above that Hell’s Kitchen is in some ways a pit. I haven’t spent much time right around CBS at 57th Street, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time enjoying the neighborhood’s nightlife (
), and while that’s all fun and good, it’s a strange neighborhood in the daytime. Midtown really starts to feel weird west of 8th Avenue. CBS’s world headquarters is by no means as grand as NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza or even Fox’s on 6th Avenue.
IMO CBS never really took full advantage of the Times Square space, though that wasn’t all their fault. It was famously the MTV TRL studio in the 90s and 2000s. MTV had the whole second floor of the Viacom building and had three streetside-facing studios there. The whole vibe of TRL was truly magical:
After the first run of TRL ended, Viacom converted the TRL studio into a retail space, leased it out, and eventually covered it in electronic billboards. The southern portion still had street facing windows, and MTV used that studio for a TRL reboot in the late 2010s, though that didn’t last.
I think forcing CBS to move their morning show there was an attempt within the same company to make use of otherwise vacant space in prime real estate. Confusingly, CBS never made use of the windows, which is what the whole point of being there should have been. Maybe it was too hard to make it work considering the best corner (the original TRL side) had been plastered over. I’d be curious to see what the company does with that space next.
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The Saturday Morning backdrop looks more consistent with just the woodgrain, but the screen borders are still a problem:
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I think I’d prefer this one to the weekday version
The just need to somehow make the bottom border look more like a step, which you could do with the actual backdrop image to give that effect
Deal confirmed.
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Welp goodbye CBS News.
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John Dickerson & co should probably start looking for another role…… 
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Walter Cronkite rolling in his grave
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CBS’ Los Angeles news operation has rebranded from “KCAL News” to “CBS LA”. All newscasts on both CBS and KCAL-TV carry this branding. Also, the KCAL-9 logo has returned.
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Well I don’t know why they tried to rock the boat sticking with the KCAL News brand then just switched back to CBS News LA 
They should have just kept it consistent with the other CBS markets when they relaunched their graphics.
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And stranger for KCAL to revert to the older branding (designed for the previous package), instead of amending the square symbol like KMAX did when they launch their primetime news…
IIRC CBS News LA wasn’t chosen at first because of KCBS’ longtime weaker news performance versus KCAL. Has the situation been reversed after rebranding, so now it’s the time to do it?
The name CBS LA looks weird on screen too - really want to add ‘VE’ to the back to show their current political position, iykyk.
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KCAL had more brand equity in Los Angeles than “CBS2”, however I think corporate wants to build on the “CBS” brand while keeping KCAL9 as a brand for channel 9 only. I think this is part of the reason why the KCAL9 logo came back, but not the CBS2 logo.
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And here is the new look KCAL News CBS LA Mornings
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Your right I knew KCAL had more of standing in their News branding but why spend 2 years trying to promote this and undo all that hard work trying to promote KCAL News which actually sounds a lot better then CBS Los Angeles News.
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Gosh that green screen is terrible and the green hue is so bad.
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