It’s so dark. It just doesn’t suit a breakfast show. It all just looks so soulless. Worst thing they ever did was leave Martin Place.
It’s a media discussion forum, not a “yay, everything is WONDERFUL! Don’t say anything bad about the show, the people working on it might get upset” forum. Tbh I’d much rather read people whinging about the show than whinging about other people whinging.
“The Plaza” location was something that set them apart from the competition. These days it’s hard to tell Sunrise and Today apart.
This x100.
Everyone at the time said the move will be great, so good they’ll be moving into state of the art studios etc. but I always knew that losing the connection to the heart of the city and the Martin Place backdrop would be a big mistake.
The current set is just so cold and lifeless. Such a shame.
Yes but in the latter years how much of the plaza did we really see?
Totally agree. At the time it was a total game-changer for not just Sunrise, but also the entire Seven News brand, which of course completely relaunched off the back of the 2004 Summer Olympics, which was a highlight in what was a disappointing year for the Seven Network overall (remember, it was the middle year of a five-year period in which they didn’t have the AFL, which saw them fall well behind Nine in the ratings war).
Having outdoor concerts (with the likes of Human Nature, the Pussycat Dolls, Avril Lavigne and of course who could forget PSY) also gave livelihood to the show and allowed fans to interact with the stars after. I for one was lucky to see the Pussycat Dolls perform in the flesh just over five years ago, before all hell broke loose with COVID.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think technological advances and the cost of renting the building, among other issues, saw them move to Eveleigh, and I agree that Sunrise isn’t the same as it was in the two decades they were at Martin Place.
We all talk about Martin Place but in all honesty this set is way better than the final iteration of Martin Place which looked sooooo dated by the end of it. Now if they did their current set in Martin Place that would’ve been a different story.
Fact of the matter is, we can crow about Martin Place and its location but apart from a few iterations, Sunrise (and Seven News Sydney for that matter) has not really had a great set in MP and a lot of it has to do with the layout of it more than Seven.
It all changed after the tragic of the Lindt siege.
Sorry, I disagree. The Martin Place set was bright and airy. Yeah it needed updating but it was much more suitable for a breakfast show than the current set. Tbf they could maybe have just recreated the Martin Place set at their current digs.
I think the set they have now looks okay in tight shots, but the wide shots look terrible. It’s all so dark. Though I do think it would have looked good for something like The Latest. Some moody lighting and that set would be perfect for a late night show.
There seemed to have been a lot more creativity in the 2000s, probably because there was a lot more money floating around back then… now that ratings and ad spend are way down, everyone tends to play it safe. Too safe, perhaps.
Martin Place was like Rockefeller Plaza for NBC’s Today Show which was inspired by the move back in 2004.
The move to Epping is a huge downgrade from the days at Martin Place. Concerts were done On the Plaza on ocassions with a live audience during that era.
Did you mean “Eveleigh”?
It should also be remembered that sets for Sunrise, The Morning Show and Seven News had to be shipped in and out and there was very little room at MP. Eveleigh’s current studio allows for fixed sets without having to move anything around.
There’s no doubt Martin Place had its charm, but it was no longer a viable studio space given the demands. Plus…the cost!
I feel like 7 designed the current studio to look more expansive, to really counter the tight constraints of MP, but all the white and lack of depth has just made it cold and sterile. And as people have pointed out, the wide ‘behind the scenes’ shots with vast empty spaces make it worse.
It’s just a bad set, you could add to it to make it more 360 to remove the black spareness, add some roof features and it’d look so much better. But they just got a bad designer
It might have had that vibe in the early days when it was attracting fans to stand outside the window or in the plaza but that buzz had completely gone in the last few years.
I worked in the city and morning walked past that window on my way from the railway station to the office. Nobody was there and nobody even bothered to look into the studio.
I think that’s what 7’s PR team wanted you to think, but it most certainly was not.
The only thing is, because it backs on to the 7news set, there’s not much depth there to add more of a 360 feel. They wanted two distinct spaces and this was the comprimise, where they could have maybe built more of a U or J shaped set that both brands could utilise (like Martin Place) with less of a need to shift set pieces
The overall design of the set is not bad in the scheme of things, at least the desk/couch areas, it’s just how it’s plonked in a dark studio and how they’re showcasing it on-air that’s average. That and the designer would have been limited by Seven’s budget.
The show had a real different energy coming from Martin Place that it’s a stark contrast between then and now, part of the brief of moving (which was inevitable and necessary) should’ve been finding some way to make the new studios unique in some way, give it a real point of difference.
However I doubt while they’re still comfortably winning that they care.
Sunrise late finish with coverage of astronauts’ return
After providing coverage across the morning, Sunrise was on an ad break as the splash down approached and just got back in time to show the final seconds.
Cricket update
Coverage finished at 9:34
I know this is BTS, but this shows how awful the placement of the set here is. Why they didn’t push the back of the set right into the corner and maximise the height of actually being in a studio with some scale and lighting grid feature etc is above me - obviously it’s a bit more costly, but build to your strengths here.
You do need working space behind sets, but nothing stopping them putting up moveable wall in front of the news set to create a more finished look, and some ceiling set prices to hang down.
The set is quite bad - it’s missing basic things like a floor and ceiling flourishes, as others have mentioned. Obviously the weakest part is the standing/flex area which again doesn’t even have a floor.
The BBC Breakfast set shows how you can make a great morning/daytime set in a conventional studio space. The set doesn’t have any of the dull grey panels that dominate Sunrise’s standing/flex space and most importantly, it feels very complete and that every aspect was thought though.
