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In November of 2012, Denali Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Alaska telco giant General Communication Incorporated (GCI), agreed to purchase Anchorage CBS-affiliate KTVA. At the time the deal was struck, GCI president Ron Duncan spoke of transforming KTVA (along with newly acquired Alaskan stations KATH and KSCT) into “an entertainment leader unparalleled.”
Duncan did not utter those lofty words lightly. A year and millions of dollars later, KTVA is making a serious run at unseating its rival KTUU, Anchorage’s longtime leader in the local news market. The station even wooed former KTUU news director John Tracy to be its consultant on a massive rebuilding, and rebranding, of its news broadcast. Under Tracy’s leadership, KTVA launched a brand new news set and newsroom on December 2, offering up a potent blend of state-of-the-art broadcast innovation and good old-fashioned razzle-dazzle.
Built in the same building that houses “The Anchorage Daily News,” the new KTVA newsroom occupies 17,000 square feet of second-floor space, populated by a staff more than twice the size of the station’s previous incarnation. Next door, a shimmering 3,000-square-foot news studio has been designed and equipped for high-definition programming, making KTVA the first station in the state of Alaska to go HD. Its new logo speaks to that achievement along with its new ability to churn out news at previously unseen levels of quality and efficiency: “First in Alaska.”
KTVA brought in broadcast news set design veterans Devlin Design Group to create the new space, requesting the company “build an environment that would not only change their look,” said creative director Dan Devlin, “but define KTVA’s brand and enhance their storytelling and presentation.” With less than one year to conceptualize, build and debut not just a set, but an entire television station, Devlin’s team “did everything from the assignment desk to the edit bays to the work stations to the onset pieces like the anchor desk and the weather center.” They even consulted KTVA on which companies would be best for the new station’s news graphics and music packages (Hothaus Creative and 615 Music, respectively), ensuring the new ownership’s rebranded vision would be integrated into every aspect of the new design, from the ground up.
Aiming to combine sleek modernism with the glorious Alaskan wilderness, Devlin’s set is rich in blues, white and gold to “jive with the [KTVA] graphics package and the predominant colors of Alaska.” Because HD reveals such a high level of visual detail, everything from the desks to bricks along the wall are made with furniture-quality materials, ensuring the set transmits beautifully on-air. Large ultra-thin LED cube wall systems offer countless visual background options, allowing the news team to import imagery ranging from video of the nearby mountains to a still of the Anchorage skyline, all while adjusting colors to the Alaskan seasons, which can offer year-round challenges ranging from blazing sunshine to arctic nightfall. Meanwhile, in the upstairs newsroom a working weather center compliments the one on-set, and window panels offer 180-degree views of the surrounding landscape.
Nimbler, sleeker and glossier than ever before, the new KTVA station is “more than a testament to modern engineering,” said John Tracy in a recent statement. “It really is a promise kept by the new owners to take KTVA to an entirely new level. In the end, it’s going to be good for journalism, it’s going to be good for competition and it’s going to be good for Alaskans.”
[Images courtesy of Devlin Design Group] Tags: