North American Affilliates/Network Set Design

Given that the people posting here didn’t design the ITV and BBC sets, and are often critical of them, they are allowed to not think US sets are the greatest thing ever too. Stop taking it so personally

Lets be very clear, you can be sure Im not taking anything you anyone says on here personally. Ok? Alright?
But i do think its silly to simply dismiss hundreds upons hundreds of sets, as all the same. Kinda ignorant. It has not thing to do with it being US or not. And clearly you only read, what you wanted to, because I stated and always state what particular elements of a specific set I dont like or if I dont like the set at all. Clearly its ignorant to be so dismissive of any entire industry in a particular part of the world that produces multiple new sets year. That is all.

Jeez. I only said it was ugly.

But if people say they don't like them, then they don't like them, you can't exactly change their minds. Blue, wood, and stone feature in nearly every example of a US local news set, it's unoriginal.

Again thats not true. You could potentially say that about maybe a station group or particular design house that uses similar elements and the results in your opinion are unoriginal and similar. One could say that about Jago's design. they have similar look and feel. But its disingenuous to say literally hundreds upon hundreds of sets across two large countries are are all the same and therefore irrelevant. If you dont like it, you dont like, no one is trying to change your mind.

Those things tend to feature in a lot of sets, not just US local news. Because there are thousands of studios across the USA with local news sets, we tend to notice the similarities. There are many fewer studios here in the UK, and we have two sets of standard studios for news, BBC and ITV. You could say that UK local news sets use a lot of glass and plastic, and screens.

Do I mind the different look? No, I actually quite like wood being used in a set design, although the fake brickwork that some US news sets use does seem a little weird.

i actually hate the stacked stone and brick that are used by the Hearst group myself. I think its absolutely rubbish. see we can agree.

A lot of the stuff you mentioned are there because of exhaustive audience research and consultants. It’s done for John Q. Public not us presentation anoraks.

I will say that I’ve heard blues are one of the most visually appealing colors in HDTV which is likely the reason why it’s used in sets and graphics.

I’m guessing the a lot wood in sets is there because it’s a quick and cheap way to hide cables behind the structure and you can change it out quickly. The stone would be more difficult unless it’s faux.

Someone brought up video walls, well when stations have 35-40+ hours of newscasts a week (some with Morning shows lasting five hours) they need a decent amount of versatility. The show would be stale if it was presented from a desk the entire time.

Blue is the least easy colour to capture detail in with digital TV standards as 4:2:0 and 4:2:0 HD only carry Cb and Cr detail at half or quarter resolution respectively, and Blue only contributes 7% to the full bandwidth luminance signal.

(In contrast, green contributes 72% to the full bandwidth luminance signal - which is why we switched to green-screen from blue-screen for high quality chroma keying when we stopped using analogue RGB full-bandwidth keying. You get a far 'crunchier' basic chroma key if you use blue-screen as all the blue information is largely in the half/quarter-bandwidth Cb signal)

However Blue is often seen as a flattering backdrop to caucasian skin tones and blonde hair, as it contrasts well (the last thing you want in background colours is anything close to a flesh tone, and green spill is horrible)

The BBC, however, from focus groups, decided that blue was also seen as cold and distancing which is why it discontinued using blue studio tones in the late 90s, and went for beige/ivory and red.



The wood thing was tried here for a bit - but it just looks dated to a European eye. Acrylic set elements are far more popular this side of the pond, as they are seen as sharper, cleaner and crisper and a bit less 'twee'. They also allow for internal lighting and a variety of looks.

I think the opposite is true here. The acrylic elements like in the UK would look a bit cheap here.

Also I’d add that a lot of homes you see in movies set in Europe and real estate ads the homes seem to be designed and decorated quite differently somehow with a lot of white. That’s probably what also contributes to attitudes of set design. Some with acrylic or alike fixtures. All in all it’s design trends of the locale.

Compared to ITV and BBC regions sets they as someone mentioned are changed and updated more frequently than US sets which typically have life spans of 6-10 years. So they are not only necessarily building for the current but for the future with pieces that hopefully will last with styles which could also reason for some caution and nothing too radical.

As it comes to flooring choices such as white, wood or darker tones we also heavily use free roaming robotics which scuff floors up and sets such as during morning shows have frequent changes. On some shows a cooking set (basically a built in stove top and maybe oven hidden underneath) will be rolled in along with couches and other demonstration areas. The robotic scuffs and eventual indentation if the floor wasn’t resurfaced will depending on robotics dent the floor.*

I think maybe a national set slightly adapted based on either ITV or BBC National Newscasts could work here. But it would definitely have to have the ability to change colors beings stark white like the ITV and the flooring on BBC News sets would get scuffed up quickly. Which could also attribute to darker color floors or wood tones.

* One case was when WNBC’s previous set in studio 3C the floors had to be redone before the launch (delaying it atleast a month) because the the surfaces chosen couldn’t handle four 525lb plus the camera loads probably 100+ lbs with a hard HDC-1000 camera and box lens.

A much-needed new set for San Francisco Fox O&O, KTVU.

https://www.newscaststudio.com/setstudio/ktvu/



Much brighter and more modern than the previous set. Some continuity, though, through the use of a similar backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge behind the main anchor desk.