There was a general election in the province of Manitoba, Canada last night. Every major TV stations in Manitoba (CBC, CTV, Global, Radio-Canada) did rolling election coverage all night. Citytv Winnipeg began their coverage at 10 PM after network programming, but they were still in the mix as Elections Manitoba was having problems sending results out to everyone until around 9:45 PM local time.
Following on TV 2 News’ changes, here’s how the bulletins look on the main network. As told already, the Odense set was retained, but Mads Hage Thomsen designed new desks in the line of his TV 2 News designs and the architectural style of the space (these debuted earlier in the year).
17 News (short newscast):
18 News (news update before the regional news block):
19 News (main news, the lack of a presenter super is due to him/her being name checked by the on-duty continuity announcer, not heard in this video):
21:30 News (late news update):
And, this Wednesday, the ticker was finally switched to the new one, initially with the old font:
Some minutes later, it finally switched to the new TV 2 Sans font:
Also this Wednesday, the new Newsroom broadcast went on air from the video-wall explainer space, with a late night show-like environment; the format emphasizes podcast-style long-form interviews and conversations. This how the show starts on the TV 2 News channel, after the simulcast of 21:30 News (which goes for longer on the news channel; if you hear closely, the presenter is name-checked by the 21:30 News anchor on duty).
Switching from the Nordics to Belgium, VRT has unveiled a new studio for its in-depth news programming, Terzake and De Afspraak, both shows airing on VRT Canvas (whose branding was recently relaunched). The new set features a 33-meter video wall used to enhance storytelling, plus additional AR/VR/XR elements and a presentation aligned with the rest of VRT NWS offerings.
Soon, other programming like De Zevende Dag (the Sunday morning news and entertainment magazine, starting in a few weeks) will join in the new space; additionally, with both VRT and RTBF having started the reconstruction and intervention of the Reyers Broadcast Center in Brussels (which will involve the demolition of many historic studios and office space to make way for a new digital building called Mediapark), the studio will serve as a longterm solution for entertainment and sport programming looking for studio space, and future-proofed for AR/VR/XR-heavy productions.
Here’s a behind the scenes look at the new studio (from Twitter/X).
Staying around Europe, SIC Noticias in Portugal has a complete makeover today, retiring the 2 decade-old red globe for stylized S. It’s done as the channel embraces itself into the digital age, with an updated app and website, plus a few new faces along the way. This has the details.
Anyways, this is how it looked in their morning news, preceded by a promo bumper and a sponsored clock:
One of the station IDs with the new jingle:
The programme menu:
And one in a different style:
The main SIC newscasts also adopted the new supers from the news channel:
Moving to the Philippines, GMA’s morning programme has a new set and graphics. The set was designed by Orlando-based FX Design Group, who also collaborated with the station in refurbishing their main news studio and their weekend bulletin set previously.
The news headlines segment:
The behind-the-scenes:
CTV in Canada is going to add a new early evening edition of the CTV National News at 5:30 PM local (sandwiched between the existing 5 PM and 6 PM local newscasts). They will be going to compete directly against Global National (in some time zones, directly head to head).
Nice for Sandi to get her weekends back after so many years. She’s been looked over too many times.
Almost a year after going on air, the newscasts’ supers have changed to a rounder, more 3D style.
The station DOG also changed to “Hoy 78”, denoting their channel number, following their English sister channel’s rename to Hoy 76 (on station DOG)/Hoy International Business Channel (official name).
Youtube livestreams don’t embed a preview IIRC, so here’s a capture courtesy of HKEPC Forum. Note the financial indices is stuck to the bottom right, while the clock was put at the bottom.
This needs some time getting used to, compared to the previous flat look:
How does it impact local newsrooms? Seems like a reason to cut the 5pm anchors in markets where the 5pm and 6pm anchors are different teams.
Right now, from what I can tell, not much. The current production and editorial staff plus reporters and anchors at each station still have to produce their station’s 5 PM newscast. It’s just they’re only filling 30 minutes instead of an hour now.
Staying in Canada, the dominant French-language TV network targeting that community, TVA, has announced it will trigger massive layoffs of over 500 people, accounting for one-third of their total workforce. The reasoning is the current financial difficulties affecting its parent company, Quebecor, which have hit hard the media business, in which TVA is included; in the last year, the company had a year-to-date loss of nearly $13 million for its Broadcasting segment, compared with $1.6 million for the same period last year, according to the company owned by the influential Péladeau family.
Pierre Karl Péladeau, president and CEO of both Quebecor and TVA: “The deficit TVA Group is currently running is simply no longer sustainable. We have a responsibility to correct the situation. TVA has historically been an important vehicle for Québec culture, language and news. We have a duty to preserve it and ensure its sustainability. The necessary measures we are taking today will change the way we do business in order to withstand the market pressures and face the competition. We will refocus our activities, reduce our operating costs and concentrate on the strengths that set us apart and make TVA Québec’s favourite television network. Our goal is to be able to continue offering viewers original Québec content, to continue investing, and to bring all Quebecers reliable coverage of news and major sporting events”.
The cost-cutting plans are as dramatic as what other companies such as Bell Media, Corus or Rogers have been implementing recently, and are focused on three big strategies: local newscasts in their smaller regional areas (Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke, East Quebec, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean) will cease to be anchored locally and will be anchored from the studios of CFCM-DT in Quebec City; the changes will involve a pre-recorded format and a centralized anchor. The Montreal, Quebec City and non-Quebecor owned affiliates (such as the RNC Media-owned stations in Gatineau-Ottawa and Abitibi-Témiscamingue) are not affected by these changes.
Yesterday’s newscasts in these markets opened with the dramatic news; it is widely expected Sherbrooke’s news operation is going to be hit the hardest by these changes, due to its status as the sole commercial French news operation in the city, as well as its heritage from the city’s major newspaper, La Tribune, and its wide coverage zone extending into Montreal and even parts of Maine. Many of these regions will only eventually have Radio-Canada’s Téléjournal newscasts as sole locally originated newscasts when the transition kicks in.
TVA will also cease the in-house production of entertainment programming, becoming instead a “publisher-broadcaster”. Its TVA Productions division will cease to exist, and their existing in-house shows (currently game shows Le Tricheur and La Poule aux œufs d’or, and entertainment magazine VLOG) will be outsourced to independent production companies.
The only shows produced by TVA moving forward will be those produced by its TVA Nouvelles division, including their national editions and regionalized programming, plus their morning show Salut Bonjour, TVA’s and LCN’s public affairs and opinion programs and select sports programming on TVA Sports.
TVA is also expected to sell its longtime Montreal headquarters at Rue Alexandre de Sève in east Montreal, which date back to the late Télé-Métropole era (opened in 1975) and move to Quebecor’s head office in downtown Montreal (4545 Frontenac Street). As part of the changes, a new, multiplatform, story-based news center will be built, as part of a new strategy which will involve Quebecor’s editorial brands: TVA, LCN, Le Journal de Montréal, Le Journal de Québec, QUB radio, 24 heures, TVA Sports, TVA Publications magazines, and other digital brands. The new strategy promotes stronger cooperation among these corporate divisions, but will still comply with CRTC regulations that force TVA’s newsroom to be separate from those of its editorial brands.
The layoffs are expected to commence within 16 weeks as of today; as part of the process, TVA will begin negotiations with its employees’ union representatives on the renewal of its collective agreements, and has established a transition committee, led by Human Resources and assisted by experts from the Employee and Family Assistance Program, in order to help with mental health, family and social security-related issues and also enable affected employees to move to other Quebecor divisions, such as their Videotron cable network or its book publishing business.
To follow up on this news… Radio-Canada is reporting that TVA Sherbrooke (CHLT) is losing 50 positions.
And TVA Saguenay (CJPM) is losing 20 positions.
All but 4 journalists and 2 ENG photographers will be left each at CJPM and CHLT. All other positions such as the news director, assignment editor (chief of staff), sales, network promotions (out of Sherbrooke), etc are being let go.
Plans for a new, hard scenic set were made from the start of the new in-house offering of Newstime; however, continued delays on building the new newsroom (and in the completion of ProSiebenSat.1’s new centralised campus in Unterföhring/Munich) have led to delays; the new set will now debut (at least) by the start of next year.
Still, German media blog DWDL.de has had an exclusive preview of the new studio set, which is nearly complete; as seen, it will be fully hard scenic, with a wide array of video walls and space for AR, plus a smaller space for social media and digital production, and a dedicated gallery. Rehearsals and dry runs are ready to be made already, but the lack of an in-studio air conditioning system and the await for approval by P7S1 management has delayed it too. Currently, Newstime teams are occupied a makeshift newsroom in one of the already completed wings of the new facility.
The full story (in German):
Here is the launch of CTV’s new national 5:30 PM newscast. No graphics change as of yet (current graphics are 10 years old), but the current national news studio is being used different ways compared to the national 11 PM newscast.
Canadian news feels right out of the 90s!
Music sets tone everything
Agree… we don’t see newsroom sets much these days. Very 90s/2000s.
Not sure how Sandi was looked over for the top job so many times. She’s much better than Omar and much the same as Lisa was.
A news crew from Czech TV channel CT24 was robbed at gunpoint at San Francisco while reporting on this week’s APEC summit.
GMA has rebranded its newscasts across the main channel and GTV, opting for a warmer shade of white and a sliver of blue. The wordmark is also unified to the same font as the overarching news department.
Unang Balita (morning news):
Generic news bulletin:
Lunchtime news Balitanghali (originally reformatted into Balita Ko this June, but since u-turned):
Flagship 6pm news 24 Oras:
Late night news Saksi:
And GTV’s news analysis programme, State of the Nation:
Chaos in Polish government broadcaster TVP, as their news channel, TVP Info, closed down abruptly yesterday. This came after the new government attempted to reform the broadcaster and appointed new management. The ousted party, who previously had a dominant voice on TVP, protested in their headquarters for “press freedom”.
This is the moment TVP Info went off air, airing TVP1’s break bumper before cutting to their agricultural report:
TVP1 later aired a new 7.30 news, 19:30, discontinuing the Wiadomości name used since 1989 and ran by those more critical to the previous government. This Polish article has more on the exact changes.
And the new 19:30 in full.
The former anchors of Wiadomosci, as well as a number of employees benefitted from the PiS era, also joined the ousted party’s sit-in, with an “alternative” broadcast led by PiS-era news director Michał Adamczyk airing on the right-wing news channel Telewizja Republika (another pro-PiS venture) at the same time as Marek Czyż announced on TVP1 the launch of 19.30 the day before its eventual start.
These were the words said by Czyż during that TVP1 broadcast:
Good evening everyone. As you have certainly noticed, there have been some big changes here, and you have the right to get an explanation. So, let us explain. No Polish citizen who finances the operation of their public TV has any obligation to listen to anyone’s propaganda. Every Polish citizen who finances their public media has the right to demand reliable, professional and honest information from them. That’s why we’re offering you what I think is a fair deal - from tomorrow, Wiadomości will present you with the photograph of a day in the world, with everything it brings. A photograph, not a painting, because it is not the same. The painting in this studio was painted for eight years using only carefully selected colors. And I assure you that this is coming to an end. Instead of a propaganda soup, we want to offer you pure water, and not only because it is noble, but because it does not have any intrusive flavors. And I promise you that it starts now. There will be no Wiadomości today, but tomorrow we will provide you with the information program from Telewizja Polska, definitely at 19.30. I’m Marek Czyż, we’ll see you there.
Czyż’s announcement was watched by an average of 2.59 million viewers, a low rating for a “normal” ratings standard, but also generating strong curiosity on the future of the news service, all before it switched to the TVP1 breakdown slide:
As for the first day’s show, it was a rousing success, with it achieving 4.29 million viewers on TVP1 and TVP Info, beating TVN’s Fakty and Polsat’s Wydarzenia by a wide margin.
Going forward, the new 19.30 program will feature Czyż and Zbigniew Łuczyński as alternating presenters. Łuczyński was hired from TVN (as it was their new news director Paweł Płuska), where he was the long-tenured presenter of tabloid news magazine Uwaga!; he left the show earlier in the year due to differences related to changes to the show.
And, due to the Powstańców Warszawy Square newsroom being occupied by the PiS sit-in, 19.30 is being temporarily produced from the newsroom and studios of TVP Sport, located in the TVP Television Centre at 17 Woronicza street in Warsaw; as a result, the newscast is being beset with many challenges, including one worker treating it as an “absolute start-up”, being produced with little resources (including having some technical difficulties and even lacking a consistency in the packaging of reports and using material acquired from agencies, not supplied by their own correspondents).
Płuska and Łuczyński are not the only outside hirings: the new TVP management is also hiring many highly-ranked and long-tenured reporters from both TVN and Polsat, including Tomasz Marcek (19.30’s deputy editor), Juliusz Kaszyński, Joanna Dunikowska-Paź, Wioleta Wramba, Piotr Jędrzejek, Małgorzata Nowicka-Aftowicz, Bartek Cebeńko and Milena Bobrowska. Additionally, another of the anchors who resigned after the PiS takeover, Jarosław Kulczycki (last seen on Superstacja/Wydarzenia24) is returning to TVP, and will serve as editor of TVP2’s news service. Kulczycki anchored Panorama from 2004 to 2006, and, after an interim period at Polsat, he returned to TVP in 2007 to anchor Wiadomości on TVP1, before becoming one of the main anchors at TVP Info. Grzegorz Sajór, who is now the broadcaster’s news director, is also back at the broadcaster, having defected TVP also during the PiS takeover. As for TVP Info, the network has not been closed, it has just suspended regular programming, as a new editor, Paweł Moskalewicz, formerly of Bloomberg Poland and Forum magazine (which closed earlier this year), has been hired to lead the network, and will serve as deputy to Sajór.
Many of PiS-era employees have been fired last night as 19.30 premiered, and TVP plans to reinstate some workers which resigned after the PiS takeover. Moreover, the new management had taken over most of the social media channels of the group by last night, except TVP Info’s Twitter/X account, managed personally by Samuel Pereira (the PiS-era editor of the network), which remained under the control of Pereira. He even defied the new management by airing a cam-scanned live broadcast of TVP Info’s internal broadcast on the network’s YouTube channel during the afternoon, which led to a take down notice just over a half-hour later; additionally, some documentaries which had pro-PiS political overtones have been removed from its TVP VOD streaming offering:
Speaking of TVP Sport, reputed industry publication WirtualneMedia.pl is being told their new chief is the former press officer of the Polish national soccer team:
(EDIT: Updated with new information)
GMA’s news always looks pretty decent. Still think the new “Integrated News” branding for the whole thing is awkward, though.