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I guess the TV in Lester’s home was showing the live picture of Studio 3C.


He returns to 3C every Monday to Wednesday after the election.

Here is a video from July with info on his setup at home:

https://www.facebook.com/LesterHoltNBC/videos/293949438381937/

Today was the last day of Saturday Today from coming from Studio A at 4001 Nebraska Ave NW. The final moving trucks moved Friday night. I imagine Sunday’s Meet The Press will be originating from Nebraska Avenue. I would expect them to make a big deal about their move given the history of the building and the studio itself. That being said either last weeks or the week before show were being switched out of the new facility at 400 North Capitol Street NW.

I have noticed that while most of their correspondents have moved and appeared from the newsroom flash cam at 400 North Capitol, one correspondent has been coming from the Nebraska Avenue studios. Tom Costello has been doing his regular guts for Today outside the WRC studios near the satellite dishes covering aerospace, transportation and science. The only thing I could think of is that the studio is closer to his home in Maryland and traffic to the new studio at that time in the morning may be busy.

All this comes as their moving 359 employees to the new facility. This will leave the Nebraska Avenue complex relatively empty. The WRC studio is awkwardly shaped like an L and the weather and traffic center is in the newsroom. The WZDC Telemundo studio is in a former prop closet with Sony PTZ cameras hanging down from the ceiling - I think there are two for the anchor desk with one that moves to a stand up position (literally just a monitor) and a third is focused on a chroma key screen. I expect the building to be rehabbed, probably go through asbestos abatement and both stations getting larger studios.

Here’s a public Facebook group for people who worked out of the building. Some amazing pictures.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/54986014474

One of the new NBC News studios on 400 N Capitol debuted with MSNBC’s new show The Cross Connection. The studio is unique and the actual old Windows looking out of the Capitol are now back. They view is not prominent. But here’s a video of the opening. You see the video wall alcove - the left sides wall is the exterior wall, during interviews they do a shot of Tiffany looking at the monitor and the camera shows her standing in front of the window. I think directly opposite this alcove there are two monitors mounted horizontally.

Okay, apparently there are two windows now back open.

Here’s the opposite wall...

Here's a sneak peek at the new home for my new @MSNBC show #TheSundayShow. Debuts tomorrow at 10am (until 12pm)! pic.twitter.com/05atgcXw8O

— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) December 12, 2020

Some nerdy observations here from last night's 18:30 Nightly News. Peter Alexander presented from the DC bureau and you can see the time on the Windows computer behind him:

The headline sequence was recorded at 18:11, then the first item at 18:17. After the first item, it is presented live.

Not sure how much the studio looking out onto the new vaulted newsroom in DC has been used so far, but we got a good look at it during MSNBC's impeachment coverage yesterday.

Yeah whilst the lighting is exceptional and the set has those NBC touches, like the lit-up elements on the desk. I still personally dont like it. The "stone" columns in the newsroom merge together to make a visual beige wall. Nope not good. And when the camera was pull back and you could see the floor. It looked as though they were set up in an old bank lobby. Nope. There are some nice touches and its NBC News they always do great work and for what it is, of course its flawless, but I dont like the design and it doesnt fit with the NBC "news look". Such an odd decision. Its not a total disaster, but I find it odd and it makes me wonder who made the decision, because it so out of character for NBC News.

I suppose NBC's on-air spaces aren't entirely uniform - 1A, 3A and 3C at 30 Rock all look very modern, but there's lots of exposed brick and art deco design features in the 4th floor newsroom that 4E backs onto (and indeed where election night came from in 2016).

The bank lobby analogy is a good one. I was thinking posh hotel, but same difference.

Do the networks have teatime/early evening bulletins? Or do they just have their Breakfast and nightly bulletins?
I know the local stations run lots of news at teatime, but are there National network news inserts?
Do those local news shows attract an audience?

I don't think any network has national news at teatime.

ABC, CBS and NBC have breakfast shows (7-9am, with ABC and NBC having extra hours afterwards) and evening national bulletins at 6.30pm.

Local affiliates are responsible for the rest of the news output, which usually includes an early morning newscast (starting as early as 4.30am in some markets) running before the breakfast show, then a lunchtime edition in some markets, an early evening edition generally split into a 5pm hour and 6pm half hour (some also run an hour at 4pm) and 35 minutes at night at 11pm.

Fox and the CW don't have any national news programmes or breakfast shows, but generally do have news from the local affiliates, in similar slots but they may also have local breakfast shows, whilst the evening bulletins will usually be at 10pm rather than 11pm.

And yes, they are ratings winners - generally the more news the better for local affiliates. It is where they make their money.