CBS 2 Getting's LA's "2"

It looks like CBS 2 is getting a new logo.

As seen on Janelle Burrell's Facebook page, the live trucks have gotten a makeover:

Burrell points out that the trucks are now white, no longer blue.  But the bigger change is the CBS 2 logo.  The "2" that the station had been using since the "More News in Less Time" days in May 1997 is gone and has been replaced by the same one sister station KCBS-TV in Los Angeles uses.

Multiple sources report that CBS 2 will also be getting a new graphics package. The station's current graphics launched Sunday, September 22, 2013.

New Graphics Notes

Now that it's been a full work week since CBS 2 launched the new graphics package, it's time to look back on some notes:

1. This is the first time the newest addition to Manhattan's skyline, One World Trade Center, has appeared in CBS 2 News opens (in the morning, at 6:00 and at 11:00). Its predecessors, the Twin Towers, had been featured in some opens prior to 9/11 (though not the opens used immediately prior).

2. This past Tuesday was National Punctuation Day but don't tell that to CBS 2.  Their new lower-third banners appear unable to display apostrophes. In these snapshots taken today, the apostrophe in "McDonald's" was omitted at noon while places where an apostrophe should have existed showed up as a blank space this evening: [9/28 Update: It appears that this issue has been resolved as of this morning.]

3. The lower-thirds place the @CBSNewYork Twitter handle (or @CBSThisMorning in the morning) beneath the anchors' and reporters' names.  It would seem to make more sense to put that person's own Twitter name in that spot, especially as the station's Twitter account is already being promoted on the bug.

4. As there is no shadow behind the website, Facebook and Twitter section of the logo bug, the white text becomes unreadable whenever it appears over white.

5. The split screens appear to be designed for widescreen use but the camera shots are only sometimes framed correctly for 4:3 screens. In the below GIF, the Mary Calvi/Weijia Jiang screen is framed correctly, though it appears weird for viewers watching in high definition as neither talent is centered in the box. The second snapshot shows two anchors in both boxes and they will get cut off on some standard definition television sets.  (The black overlays show the "safe area.")  Many channels on both cable and broadcast now take advantage of the entire 16:9 widescreen space and letterbox their broadcasts for SD viewers.

6. The previous logo still appears on the Mobile Weather Lab, which is seen in promos as well as in an ad on the bottom of the screen during some weather forecasts.

7. The logo has also yet to be replaced on cbsnewyork.com, which would seem to be simpler than replacing it on a vehicle and redoing promos. In addition, the Facebook page continues to use some weird do-it-yourself version of the previous logo.

8. Sister station WLNY has yet to see the new graphics for the most part. The lower-thirds did receive a slight update, changing the color from a semitransparent black to blue on the two-line banners. They are also now using the new "live" bug CBS 2 is using. (And the 2012 copyright is used, at least Tuesday night when the below snapshot was taken.)

Regarding the music: The old theme is still used in teases for the noon and 5:00 newscasts during the day. CBS 2 News This Morning reverted to the previous morning theme Tuesday morning (though the open still uses the new theme).

Slideshow of New Graphics

We've compiled this gallery of snapshots showing CBS 2's new graphics:

New 6:00 Open

Here's the CBS 2 News at 6:00 open... Video includes the end of the 5:00 as well as the "Campaign 2013" animation:

New 5:00 Open

Here's the open to CBS 2 News at 5:00 (apologies for the audio hiccups):

Noon Graphics Recap

Continuing our roundup of CBS 2's new graphics, here's a look at the noon newscast:


1. The open follows the same wording as the morning: "Live from Studio 46, this is CBS 2 News at Noon." (Last night, it started out: "Live from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City...") Since the HD launch in April 2007, only the morning newscast's open had a specific mention of the time of day -- all other opens named the newscast simply "CBS 2 News."

2. The "@CBSNEWYORK" Twitter handle appears on most talent lower-third banners. (Anchors previously did not have any other text below their names. Reporters in the field used to have "CBS2 NEWS" written beneath.)

3. The lower-third graphic does not loop smoothly and appears to "restart" when it reaches the end of the animation.


5:00 p.m. promo:

New Graphics Make Morning Debut

This morning starting at 4:30 brought us another look at CBS 2's new graphics and a the new Enforcer's morning cuts.  A video montage is in the process of uploading and will be added to this post shortly.

Some notes:

1. The wording in the opening is changed a bit: "Live from Studio 46, this is CBS 2 News This Morning." Last night, it was: "Live from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, this is CBS 2 News at 11."

2. The social media and website portion of the logo bug did not appear for the first two blocks (approximately 20 minutes) this morning.

3. The ticker was originally in sentence caps, meaning that most of the letters were lowercase, until a few minutes into the third block when the text became all capital letters.

4. The WCBS Newsradio 880 logo does not appear in the ticker anymore, making the "Traffic and Weather Together on the 8's" mention seem out of place.

5. The old morning theme was used a bunch of times today, including as a bed during top stories recaps as well as for local cut-ins during CBS This Morning.

6. The old logo has pretty much been wiped from CBS 2's air, except for in a few small spots.  The cups used by Chris Wragge and Mary Calvi still show the "CBS 2 HD" logo and it can also be seen in the close, which is a promo for the "YourDay" mobile app. The desk still has the same CBS 2 logo inside a box, which has been used since the studio debuted nearly two years ago, but still does not directly match the new look.

7. There does not seem to have been an update to WLNY's "The Couch" presentation, which used a look very different from the regular graphics.  WLNY's next newscast is tonight at 9:00 and that newscast's graphics have been more in line with the CBS 2 look (though maintaining its own style).

8. These graphics have also debuted on KYW in Philadelphia and KCBS in Los Angeles. KYW has already added the new gold-3 logo to the top of CBSPhilly.com.  KCBS's logo already had a gold 2 in their logo. (WCBS's gold 2 has not been added to CBSNewYork.com yet but it's possible that it'll stay all blue as they're using an all-blue WLNY logo as well.)  It looks like the other CBS O&Os will eventually get the upgrade.

9. The previous theme is being used in teases for the noon news again this morning. Also, Dana Tyler is doing the teases. (The noon newscast is usually anchored by Chris Wragge and Dana Tyler.)

Update:
Here's the video:

New Graphics and Enforcer Music Debut

CBS 2 debuted a new graphics look as well as a new Enforcer theme tonight.

Here's the open: "Live from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, this is CBS 2 News at 11."


This post will be updated with more video shortly...

Update:
Here's a promo for CBS 2 News This Morning, which includes a morning version of the new Enforcer theme:



Here's a Twitter promo:



Stay tuned for a montage in a few minutes...

Update:

The microphone flag has been updated. (The other two sides of the cube likely have the WLNY 10/55 logo.)

Update:

Here's a montage of tonight's broadcast, including the open, teases, weather and close:



Some notes:

1. The bug uses the correct Twitter bird icon (as does the promo above). The long outdated "t" icon was seen in last week's leak and had been appearing in promos for months.

2. Also about the bug, most of it (the time, temperature and logo, leaving only the social media/website line -- which is still very distracting) disappears during the seven-day forecast because it would otherwise cover up parts of the fifth and seventh days. This leaves the screen logo-less as it does not otherwise appear on the weather graphics.

3. For the first time since April 2006, CBS 2 is using new weather icons (sun, clouds, etc.). (The leak showed the previous icon set still in use.) The Titan radar/satellite map has been renamed Vortex. The seven-day still shows days six and seven on top of each other (which started as a five-day forecast with a "Plus 2" bonus even before the station went HD in 2007 but now seems to be out of place).

4. Team logos were not used in the sports score lower-thirds tonight, though they were seen in the leak.

5. Nearly all mentions of "high definition" have finally been removed.  It's no longer announced in the open and the logo no longer has the "HD" letters growing out of it. But the closing voiceover still says, "You've been watching CBS 2 News in high definition," the same that's been used since the April 2007 HD launch.

NewsByte2 will have more video from other newscasts tomorrow. We're also waiting to see how WLNY will implement the new look.

New Graphics Debuting Tonight

A few minutes ago during the Primetime Emmys broadcast, CBS 2 showed off the new graphics that appear to be debuting tonight on CBS 2 News at 11:00 after the Emmys. Maurice DuBois and Kristine Johnson are anchoring and the same cut of Enforcer is used in this spot:



According to this post on TV News Talk, KYW in Philadelphia launched the new look, along with a different version of Enforcer, this evening during an NFL halftime broadcast and during their 10:00 broadcast on their CW sister station.

We'll have more on the new look shortly...

New Graphics Leak

It appears that we have a sneak peek of CBS 2's new graphics package.

The user "HulkieD" on the TV News Talk message boards uncovered an online video, which was pulled this morning, showing a new look as well as a newer version of the Enforcer theme.

The look incorporates the HD-less logo with the gold "2" that debuted in promos in late April and looks to be heavily inspired by graphics used by NBC's owned stations, including WNBC, as well as the circular CBS network graphics used in primetime.

The CBS 2 logo bug has a subtle animation, something the station has not done since the April-August 2006 look. Below, the website, Twitter (with the outdated "t" logo -- the service's logo is simply a bird these days) and Facebook handles take turns appearing. (This is something WNBC does but has also been the trend among stations across the country as well.)

The lower-thirds and full screens change from blue to red for breaking news. (One hopes that Lindsay Lohan's troubles won't regularly be treated with "breaking" intensity.)

One other note: If the placement on the video is final, the lower-thirds, bug and ticker are positioned noticeably lower than the current on-air look, which were higher than in the past and as compared to most other stations' graphics.

Overall, it seems to be a much more highly detailed graphics package, using colors other than just blue and includes multiple full screen background animations, than the one the station and most other CBS O&Os have been using for the last three years.

It will be interesting to see how the graphics are modified to fit WLNY.

For a closer look, check out hulkied.com for a gallery of snapshots and a few more on TVNewsTalk.net.

Videos of the New Look

Thanks to YouTube user NYNewsWatch, we have the following HD videos of CBS 2 News' new look from this afternoon:

CBS 2 News Debuts News Graphics

CBS 2 News debuted new graphics today at noon. It appears to be more of a update of the April 2007 Giant Octopus package than an entirely fresh look in that Arial is still the main font and similar CBS eye elements are used for the background animations. One major difference is that the yellow and gold colors that had been used along with the blue seem to have been dropped. As spotted last night and this morning, the "HD" lettering in the logo now sit next to the eye-2 logo and seems to make the logo look unbalanced, especially with the time, temperature and website address aligned with the eye-2 part in the bug.

The whole "upgrade" brings to mind the August 2006 simplification of the April 2006 look.

Here are some snapshots taken from the wcbstv.com videos:









2:29 P.M. UPDATE: A few more snapshots...
Looks like the CBS eye in the lower-thirds gets covered up for specific franchise brands, such as part of a caduceus for HealthWatch.


The weather graphics have also been updated. The graphics for the maps appear to be the same but the new unanimated background appears on the today/tonight/tomorrow slides and seven-day forecast along with new border treatments. The "CBS 2 HDTV" logos in the studio weather center have generally been replaced with "CBS 2 NEWS" logos.

More New Logo Sightings

Something's definitely up... Below is a composite of the new logos spotted in other areas of wcbstv.com this morning:

And here's a larger version of the graphic directing visitors to the station's Twitter page:

The main logo in the banner is still the current "HDTV" logo.

9:37 A.M. UPDATE: The Facebook page has an updated profile picture that seems to show the "HD" part in a slightly different shade as the eye-2 part of the logo, something that was also spotted above:

New Weather Map Banners

CBS 2 News began using a new radar-like graphic in place of the regular banners on the weather maps last night at 11:00. It at first appeared to be an error because of the lack of a graphic behind the actual text; however, its continued use today seems to indicate that it is intentional.

While we're on the topic of the weather graphics, there remains an inconsistency between the morning/noon and the evening presentations. As seen below, Lonnie Quinn's seven-day forecast leaves out the blue title bar, making the text harder to read. Quinn's presentations have left this out for months while the other weather talent include it.

CBS2 HD & The Weather Channel No More

Over the recent weeks, the "CBS2HD and The Weather Channel Forecast" has become the "CBS2HD Forecast" on-air, but The Weather Channel logo had remained intact. However, with today's confirmation of The Weather Channel's sale to NBC Universal, The Weather Channel logo was dropped from the 7 day forecast. A wide shot of the studio also reveals that a CBS2 HDTV logo covers The Weather Channel logo located underneath the plasma in the weather condo.

CBS 2 Bug Goes Green

In observance of Earth Day, CBS 2's usually transparent logo bug on the lower-right corner of the screen has been green during newscasts today. The logo, which includes two leaves off to the top-right side of the eye-2, has also shown up occasionally in the past during environmental "Going Green" segments or reports. Several such stories aired today, including this one from Cindy Hsu.

The station also teamed up with Whole Foods Market to provide free cloth bags at select locations.

New Morning Ticker

CBS 2 News debuted a new ticker this morning that makes traffic and weather more available. The left side, titled "Roads & Rails," picked three locations (59th St. Bridge, Battery and Bayonne Bridge) and updated viewers on their statuses (which this morning were "no problems," "no delays" and "moving well," respectively). The right half presented the forecast for the morning, afternoon and tonight, including forecast icon, temperature and brief description.

It's not clear exactly when the new graphic is supposed to be visible as it shared the bottom of the screen with the usual ticker that's been in use for over a year.

(Snapshot from wcbstv.com's video library.)

"Eye On The Storm" Graphics

For the first time in recent memory, CBS 2 News has ditched the "Storm Watch" brand for snow coverage. (There have been instances in which special titles, such as "Valentine's Day Storm" and "December Blast," have been used for specific storms, but this seems to be a broader change.) Here's a look at some of the new graphics:




Special "Eye On The Storm" lower-thirds were used during CBS 2 News at Noon but the regular look returned at 5:00...

New School Closings/Delays Ticker

We got our first look at this season's school closings and delays graphic:

Whiter Bug

Now this seems like it could be very trivial but it's worth reporting anyway: the CBS 2 logo bug on the screen has been made whiter, for lack of a better description. Below are a couple of images from this weekend:

Saturday morning:

Sunday morning:(It's not just what's behind the bug that's making it look different.)

Could this be related to the upcoming switch to high definition? Or is this really nothing?

And on a related trivial note, the lower-thirds are positioned slightly lower tonight.