A changing look

Behind the scenes is not the only place changes happen at a TV station. The on-air look changes periodically, too!

During my time at KGW, we were Northwest NewsChannel 8, NewsChannel 8, and KGW8. The standard reporter outcue when I left in 2018 was "KGW News."

Our production went beyond just news on Channel 8. We also produced a newscast for what started as PAX, and then changed to WB32, then NW32TV, then Portland's The CW, then CW32. Phew!

Directors rotated around the various shows a bit, but for part of my tenure, I directed the show for channel 32. We played with different formats. When I took over in 2009, it looked like this:

Anchor Joe Donlon with your 10 at 10 in 2009.

That giant "over the shoulder" (known as an "OTS") graphic next to the anchor essentially had a rundown of the first block of the show. Having to add, move, or change a story once that thing was on the air became a lesson in juggling as a director, as it was complicated to update.

As some point, we changed the open and added a lot bling to the top story live graphic you'll see over reporter Mike Benner. We call those "supers" because they are superimposed over the rest of the picture. They are also referred to as fonts, lower thirds, and chyrons. Chyron is a brand of graphics machine. It's like calling tissues "Kleenex." This is from 2011.

I wasn't kidding about the font bling. There's a lot going on with these graphics!

Then the giant OTS changed from yellow to red and blue and the logo changed to CW32. We added our KGW NewsChannel8 logo to the big graphic, too. Branding!

I don't remember exactly when that change happened, but this picture is from 2014. This would have been not terribly long before we moved to automated news production.

Anchor Laural Porter with your 10 at 10 in 2014.

Around the time we moved to automation, we got rid of the giant OTS and allowed our anchors to sit down at the desk. I'm sure they appreciated that! The show format became similar to the 11 p.m. that aired on KGW. This blurry screenshot is from 2015.

We were still doing the 10 p.m. when I left the station in 2018, but shortly thereafter there were a bunch of television station ownership changes that moved the CW show over to the CBS station in town. That's a story for another post that one day I hope I have time to tell!

I worked on a lot of shows at KGW. At some point, I had directed every regularly-scheduled show, from filling in on weekend mornings, to regularly directing the 11 p.m. on weekday nights. Sports shows, debates, parades, special reports, webisodes, wall-to-wall weather. You name it, we did it, and I at some point probably was part of its production!

One of the other shows I regularly directed for a bit was called Live at 7. It was a show that was ahead of its time, combining social elements online with live television production, with a techy, geeky spin. We experimented with different segments and formats. As it progressed and the host changed, it morphed into an infotainment program. The one constant was that it was fun in all of its iterations.

I had the pleasure of directing a who's who of KGW on that show, including Stephanie Stricklen, Reggie Aqui, Joe Donlon, Chris Willis, and filled in (as a director!) with Brian McFayden and Cassidy Quinn. Alas, most of those clips have disappeared from the internet, and all of those hosts have since moved on from KGW, although I keep in touch with many of them.

I have a special place in my heart for that show, as it is how I became known as Director Carey. Thank you, Steph for the daily:

Director Carey, please roll the open!