North American Affilliates/Network Set Design

That just makes me want to vomit, frankly.

Grab another bucket. Funny how it resembles the old SkyNews set IMO. LOL. Not everyone's cuppa tea. But WSVN do what they do VERY WELL. Its unashamedly bold and brash, loud and flashy. Cant fault them for the effort. I certainly wouldnt watch it everyday. But its wild how they seem to top themselves, even when they pulled back from the heavy crime/bloodly coverage that typified their newscasts in the 90s. I do think there is a cohesion to the flash, Unlike FoxNewsChannel which was modeled on WSVN. They are just a mess.

WPIX, Tribune's New York CW station, is building a new set...

http://www.newscaststudio.com/2015/03/09/nyc-cw-preps-for-new-set/

WPIX's news output has had its ups and downs over the past few years, but is in pretty good shape nowadays. Their set has always looked a bit low-rent compared to the other New York stations, though - so, with other Tribune stations like KTLA having decent sets, I'm hopeful that this revamp will put that right.

Ironically, the part of their old set they're using as a temporary set actually looks slightly better than what they had before, in my opinion...

http://www.newscaststudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/wpix.png

I guess it isn't out of the same feed - but the live backdrop angle, is almost identical to WNBC's...

Yep - in fact, WNBC, WCBS and WPIX all have similar skyline shots as a backdrop. WCBS's is a static image, though - whereas the other two are live.

I know that WNBC's camera is at the top of 30 Rock - but not sure about WPIX's.

Bloody hell, that is awful - couldn't stomach more than the first minute of it. It's so garish they make what presumably is a real news set look like a dodgy CSO job.

From NewscastStudio, the reported amount for WSVN's new set was half a million dollars:
http://www.newscaststudio.com/2015/03/09/the-big-cost-of-miami-newsplex-redo/

I know they are trying to pun a chart single, but I have problems with a news channel that advises "Don't believe it! Just watch".

Maybe they are just trolling their audience.

Sadly WSVN has done that for about 10 years. They are horrible. But if totally fits the South Florida market. Loud cheesy and over the top.

To be fair, they're a Fox affiliate, so it's probably quite appropriate.

WSVN does things that no other affiliate, FOX or otherwise would even think about doing. They pride themselves on being outrageous and bold. It has alot to do with it being based in Miami and the pulse of the city. This style goes well back the early 90s when the big affiliate swap happened and they were left without an major affiliation and they eventually wound up affiliating with FOX as a last resort. At the time the FOX network was still in its infancy. And WSVN thought such a big affiliate change would have doomed the station to die a slow death, so the decision was made to turn news into its big programming draw. The hours of news increased and tone shifted dramatically. The mid to late 90s was the bloodly, tabloidly period. They have since actually pulled back from the blood and gore. I wouldnt say they explicitly stated it this way; but the news became entertainment... in the way it was presented and since it worked in Miami, WSVN and Sunbeam has never looked back.

A history of that can change is clearly seen as you watch these news opens starting in the early 80s up until just before the recent update. At minute 4:30 you can seen the change in tone start to happen.

At the time, several hotels in South Florida stopped carrying WSVN because they were concerned that all the crime coverage would scare the tourists.

(In addition to WSVN's editorial shift, the rate of violent crime in Florida is down substantially from where it was in the 1990s.)

BTW, we've mentioned this before, but it's an interesting tidbit; ProSieben in Germany used WSVN's set in the late 1990s -- but no other elements of WSVN's in-your-face format: