[PDX] The Studios of Portland: KATU, On Your East Side

3148.

A few days ago I'd visited the surrounds of KGW-TV, Channel 8, over on SW Jefferson St. And I'd rhapsodized about the KOIN Center before that. But one of Portland's Three Sisters of Broadcasting had escaped my lens, and that would be that (former) Fisher's Blend station, KATU.

KATU Logos over the years.

KATU's studios occupy what was originally a five-sided city block bounded on the north by NE Hoyt Street, on the south by NE Sandy Blvd and a slivery piece of NE Glisan Street, on the west by NE 21st Avenue and on the east by NE 22nd. Its official address is 2153 NE Sandy Blvd, and the station has lived in this building since it was inaugurated in the early 1960s. It has also been an ABC station for all but about a year of its existence, and while the other major outlets in town have changed affiliations at least once or twice (even KPTV was an NBC station at one time), KATU has been Portland's ABC stalwart … though it is, it is said, the fourth Portland station to be an ABC affiliate.

The current look of the building dates from sometime in the 1980s, if memory serves. It removed the old logo (a big 2, shaped something like a top-heavy swan) from the building and went big for beige. The station ID gracing the SE and S sides of the building visible from Sandy Blvd date back to about that time. Earlier versions of the logo (including the classic swan-2) can be seen in the paragraph above.

The current facade of the building, oddly, is not where you find the front door. See the photo above. That corner of the building, including that white-stuccoed corner with the single grey door in it that holds the station's 2153 address in bold numbers was once the main entry. After the major remodel in the 80s, that entry moved to the other side of the building. But stay tuned for that, as they say.

The above shot is taken looking south on NE 22nd toward Sandy Blvd. The charming brick building was at one time a jazz club named E.J.'s; now it's the east wing of Silver Lining Jewelry and Loan. It's a pawn shop. That van is turning into NE Glisan St going east from Sandy and 22nd; it diverges from here to take you into the heart of Laurelhurst, Providence Hospital, and points east and east of that.

Moving to the NW corner of this block … NE 21st Avenue and Hoyt Street … is where the somewhat counter-intuitive actual-main-entry to the KATU studio is. I remember being here for that KATU blogger meetup a few years back,  still a cherished memory. And, while the logo on the other sides of the building recall a slightly earlier time, the ones over the main entry are up to date:

The current logo, the current On Your Side tagline, and the call sign of the Portland Univision outlet … KUNP. This is what they apparently call a 'duopoloy', which is a broadcasting thing.

Fittingly, the new logo and IDs are on the building's side (COMEDY GOLD! YOU'RE WELCOME, PORTLAND!)

Now I mentioned the five-sided block with a sliver of NE Glisan. Here's that side of the building today:

That long, flat side of the building with the landsaping in front of it, that landscaping used to be street. And that street was technically part of NE Glisan, though there was not enough of it to make a full-width street there. Out of shot on the left the not-so-busy part of NE Glisan Street continues nto the formerly-industrial neighborhood north of Sandy and south of I-84. Presumably this was done to make the intersection safer; Glisan and Sandy are both very busy arterials at this point, and the same thing about the diagonal of Sandy that creates those quirky little corners and interestingly-shaped blocks also make for dangerous intersections. And so that goes.

The part of the building that surrounds it like wainscoting is perhaps the part with the most visible history to it. Remember how I told you that SE corner of the building used to be the main entry? Well, check this out:

Note how the stone tile has a certain change of tone from just the other side of the CHANNEL 2 metal type there to the white pillar at the corner? That was part of the original entry way. And the addres numbers appear not just once on the building, but twice …

… on that metal flag that shows about fifty-odd years worth of wear. I find it sweet that KATU has left those old address numbers there. Makes me smile. I like anyone and anything that appreciates its own history, and KATU, being a broadcast station, and especially with its Fisher Broadcasting roots, knows how to do that

The motif here is along the west side of the building and I took it before we left to get some other pictures of the neighborhood because it's the only side of the building you'll find that on. And it's an interesting one, which suggests nature or canoes or something. It's really hard to say. But I like seeing it there.

[PDX] The Studios Of Portland: Retro-cool KGW-TV

3144.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again; TV stations are temples to me.

I'm sure it comes from too much Saturday morning TV and game shows and too much TV news when growing up. Once I saw pictures of Portland over the TV … well, it was game over for my sentimental heart.

Now that I've been a Portlander for more than half my life, it's surprising to realize that some things never get old to me. Like driving past TV stations … the technology, the energy. TV stations to me are like those purple lights to bugs. Irresistible.

I'm fortunate that I've gotten to tour some. Not all the ones I've wanted, of course; the day of the regular station tour … if ever there was one … is loooong past. But so far, KATU, Channel 2, KOPB, and KGW's Studio on the Square. KOIN, despite my love of its building, I've still not seen into, and the KGW main studio, still nada there too also. Hope springs eternal, at least within the limited bounds of a human's life.

But, as I said, I've never gotten tired of pulling past TV studios. And, if KOIN's is a mothership, then KGW's is Moonbase Alpha … kind of what you get if you let all the architecture in Gerry Anderson's TV shows collide and merge, but in the good way, totally in the good way.

You reach the KGW studios by travelling west on SW Jefferson Street going out of the city core. The two streets, SW Jefferson and SW Columbia, form an important legacy 1-way couplet; these two streets carried US Highway 26 before the Sunset Highway was built and connected to the inner I-5/I-405 freeway gauntlet. The streets still merge at SW 18th Avenue and proceed under the Vista Bridge to merge with the Sunset just west of the Vista Ridge Tunnel.

But I digress and get away with myself, and pass by the building just like you might, because it cleverly slots into its surrounds. The facade almost seems too small to contain a TV station. But it's there, on the north side of SW Jefferson Street, between SW 14th and 17th Avenues, just as you start to go downhill into the bowl of Goose Hollow.

The first thing you notice is the cowlings over the windows. When KGW's studios were built, they were obviously designing for a then-futuristic look. Well, it's gone through a futuristic phase through various fashion changes without altering, and now, it's come back around … delightfully retro-futuristic, riding the Ouroborous of architectural fashion.

This is one cool-ass building.

That mast at one time held a lit sign bearing the station's call-letters. The place you'll find station ID from street level is on a modest sign in front:

The new Gannett empire style has not yet trickled down to the sign in front, but I'm sure it's set to soon. It holds all the just-superceded logos, including the old KGW.com and a digital subchannel I must say we quite miss … KGW 24/7, kind of a super-local weather channel, cycling beautiful Oregon views from KGW's many remote cams with the occasional weather report and news-show recast. This was a good, great thing, and we miss it. Seriously.

The front of the studio has a classy touch no other broadcast center in Portland has … this wonderful semi-circular drive designed to drop anyone, in any limo (or personal car, even) in style, at the front door to the station. It really is quite hip, and moreso in person.

Did I want to walk up and look in that lobby? You bet! Did I? No! I respect boundaries. But I'm hoping that someday KGW gives a studio tour. I would so be there.

Now, I mentioned that it seemed a brief facade for a TV studio. It's what I've heard call a 'sleeper' … a little front leads to a big back side. In this case, the building is shaped like a reversed "L", with the tip of the base of the L peeking out onto Jefferson. The building extends back and then turns west. The back door is about a block north of Jefferson on SW 17th Avenue:

… which you can tell, because there's the window cowls up there.

Each edifice has things to recommend it. KGW's is just totally cool, because it has this funky futuristic design that became retro-future, and it wears it with cool self-confidence.

KGW doesn't need your approval. KGW just is. 

[logo] KINK's New Logo: The KINKtrix, Reloaded

3141.

This was actually pointed out to me more than a couple of weeks back, by Ben. And, by way of explanation, if not exculpation, whenever I tried to write about it, I found myself having to restate my words over the first few paragraphs.

Or, as, the say on FB, It's Complicated. 

KINK, Portland's legendary FM station at 101.9 on your dials, goes back a hell of a long way; 1968, an eternity in broadcasting, and an infinity in todays furiously format-flipping radio landscape. I don't think I'm unsafe in saying that Portland's radio landscape has gotten a lot more dreary since the the late 1990s, but fortunately we still have outlets such as KINK who, even if music has diverged and become richer in tone and substance, still approach it the same way … literately, with thoughtfulness and style and an awareness developed over nearly 50 years of taking the music they play seriously.

I was impressed by how seriously when I discovered that KINK is using the TuneGenie online service to provide its Listen Live function. This is more than just a simple stream. Each song is listed at the time it played, and gives links to online clips, the lyrics, and even to iTunes purchase links. Song you just heard caught your ear? Go ahead and buy it right now.

It's pretty nifty. This screenshot (from http://kink.tunegenie.com) gives you an idea (you might have to go through the main website at http://kink.fm to get there tho):

Classic Bowie, The Verve, and three or four bands I never heard of. All of that fits in with the new tagline … but I get ahead of myself.

My history with listening to KINK goes back to the mid-80s. It was the days where apartments in NW Portland were still affordable on the minimum wage; 1-room with a kitchenette on NW Flanders between 21st and 22nd with a shared bathroom in a very clean and well-maintained old mansion were $150/month. The meagre choices of jobs I would ere be offered was well on its way toward evolving me into the night owl I seem to have become, and KINK was the only station I ever listened to. I knew the late-night velvet that was Lights Out, which was nice because that was just enough jazz for my day. Steve Winwood ruled the airwaves and his songs won my heart. And there was else and other.

The 1970s.

The KINK format and approach has remained consistent and so, up until recently, has the logo. The original logo, legend has it, had block caps and a mountain and a bird, but that didn't seem to sit with the image the organization had for itself, so it's said, so in the early 70s, the wordmark that would serve in various versions for the next 40-odd years was created: the minuscule 'kink', in handwritten script. Relaxed, informal, yet erudite and smart, it neatly embodied the KINK vibe.

In those days, of course, radios didn't do any of this nancy-poncy decimal point frequencies. Sure, it's always been at 101.9 on the FM dial, but our Dads and Moms tuned to "KINK, FM One-Oh-Two", and they liked it.

The 1990s-2000s

Times changed but, as I said, the logo … not much. By the first decade of the 2000s the kinky script had moved out of the old square pad and into a newer and more modern oval with a yellow background. But the True-to-the-music spirit of the old logo was still there in its casual script, and the tagline was still True To The Music, even though the glyphs underlying the design boasted of its precise frequency and its web address as another place to tap into that KINKy goodness.

Scarcely a year ago the logo evolved again, as I wrote about in this blog here: http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2013/11/logo-kink-fm-true-to-logo.html. And here's what I wrote at the time:

Today's KINK is much the same as the 1980s version. But they've ventured more into live acts and similar promotions. The new logo, which boasts the terrestrial frequency as well as the legendary tagline, encourages you to think of KINK the way a lot of stations do these days - frequency-name, so it's going with the fashion in a fashion, but in some ways you gotta change with the times, even if your content stays timeless … as the script logo, which I've always enjoyed, does.

This was the then-new version of the logo:

Circa 2013, November

… which I was a little mixed on but I did enjoy the fact that they remained true to the logo.

Well, if you've seen any of the commercials they've been running on TV latterly, you'll know that the look is all-new and rather cool. And this is it (screen-capture from the website … no high-def available, unfortunately) …

My feelings are decidedly mixed about this. And they revolve around two poles. The first one being: I didn't think the old look was old, or dated, or needed to be particularly fixed in any way. But that's why I maundered prolix about what KINK has meant to me; you don't get to know someone for that long without learning the contours of their face. I grew up an inveterate radio-listener. A favorite radio station for me was part of my daily survival kit; you go to a favorite stream to get just the right kind of water – well, your mind is the same thing. You go to a favorite station to hear the music you want to hear, and KINK's eclectic, unafraid mix of what's new and what's classic is just the right soundtrack for late lights over a drawing board, noodling around in sketchbooks or writing in one's diary … or just grooving on the late-night air.

The second one is … this logo is pretty good, actually. There's been a trend in making inspired type choices carry the design water, and this sticks that landing pretty well. A note I enjoy is the way the callsign is in minuscule … the tagline, Discover Music (which is always delivered with a strategic, pregnant pause in the TV commercials between the two words) is in mixed-case. The strictly lower-case display of the call-letters, though, recalls the older 'handwritten' logo in a subtle thematic way. 

So, the logo works and works well. Kudos there. 

But to, all of a sudden, find that my old friend is gone and won't be coming back? I has teh sad there, folks. Sorry, I can't lie about my feelings here. 

So, good on KINK for coming up with a good, solid logo, easy on the eye, in fashion and current with the type. I do sincerely think it's well-done.

But, if you really must know, KINK's left its script signature on my heart, and that's exactly the way it'll stay there. 

[pdx_TV] KOIN 6 Brands the Mothership

3140.

I've said it before: edifices matter. Especially when you're a media company that has an electronic side (The Oregonian has forgotten this, and will be consigned to the netherworld of has-beens for it).

KOIN TV has one of the best emblems that a media company can have: A remarkably beautiful building, the KOIN Center, which, at 509 feet in height and 35 floors, is the third-tallest building in Portland (and, thus, the state of Oregon). It stands on the block surrounded by SW Columbia and Jefferson streets and SW 2nd and 3rd Avenues; this was KOIN's home since before the construction of the KOIN Center, and the station thus became its signature tenant. Its tapering profile, topped with a blue pyramid, remind one of a rocket ship from classic SF movies, if nothing else.

The mothership, ready for takeoff.

During the KOIN Local 6 days, they didn't take advantage of this symbol, and that, I thought, was a missed opportunity. Identity efforts before that did, but the were kind of bland, I thought. But then, a few months back, KOIN rebranded. Now, I don't know who was responsible for putting together the new look of the opens, but someone finally got it right. These are opens I can't get tired of looking at.

The graphics open with dynamic layered chevron shapes in blue chasing each other from the left to the right. Glossy music strikes up, with a technological edge, arresting the viewer's attention. The chevrons part momentarily long enough to let a voice-over intone "Live, from the KOIN Center, in downtown Portland …" and we are treated to really-awesomely well-done aerial shots-in-motion, gliding over the south part of downtown, and given an atmospheric feel thanks to colored lens-flare effects. These are great shots. They really draw in and almost make love to the most photogenic major downtown in America.

This YouTube video, posted by a user monikering themselves Portland TV, compiles all the major opens. Just goes to show what happens when you pair the beating heart of a beautiful city with dynamic opening music and graphics … something memorable and successful.



I've taken the liberty of screencapping the four variations on the approach. The source is the original poster's video.

The first one seems to be used for the morning and noon newscasts. If you paid attention to the video, you also noticed the tone of the morning news theme is more chipper and upbeat; there is a grimmer, more minor-keyed approach on the other three.

The morning and noon 'casts use the above, as I mentioned. The view is from the south and the flying view point is approaching it going north. Other notable buildings include the Edith Green/Wendell Wyatt Federal building (the one with the 'doffed cap' just behind and right) the Portland Building (behind and to the left) and the Wells Fargo Tower (left edge of frame).

The next two are used for the flagship 5-6 PM broadcast hour:

Above, the viewpoint is looking north-northeast as it moves from west to east toward the Willamette river. The ramps to and a bit of the west end of the Morrison Bridge can be seen at the top of the frame; the red brick building on the right edge of the view is the Umpqua Bank Plaza, which started as the Benj. Franklin Plaza; the chevron shaped building at the extreme right is the Waterfront Marriott Hotel, and, of course, the Wells Fargo there on the left. The building with curved roofline is the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse.

This one pivots about the Wells Fargo Tower, on the right this time, as we travel again from east to west but this time north of the KOIN mothership. In the upper left, boats can be seen plying the RiverPlace marina; in the extreme upper corner of the shot the Marquam Bridge carries I-5 over the Willamette.

And this is the 11 PM shot. Same general area as just above, but an approach more straight on. Very TRON-esque.

Edifices matter. If you have one use it, but make sure you use it well. This is doing it right. 

[logo] Goodby KGW NewsChannel 8, Hello, KGW8

3137.

A few weeks into the new graphics change over at 15th and SW Jefferson, and here are a couple of thoughts about that.

Portland's KGW-TV is one of the senior members of the broadcasting world; that it should get by on only three letters in its call-sign should tell you that – the system was rationalized a bit sometime during the 1930s/40s to only allow four-letter callsigns, and the three-letter ones were grandfathered in. KGW, to be specific, has broadcasted in one form or another since 1922.

During the 70s, 80s, and 90s, KGW seemed to change looks more often than any other station locally, at least as far as I can remember. In 1995, however, it went to the coinage Northwest NewsChannel 8, and then in 1996 firmed up the look: A wide one, with the word Northwest reversed out of a red stripe, NewsChannel in condensed bold italicized, and a comparatively-dainty 8 in a blue box of its own.

Myself, I found the coinage rather awkward to say, and a bit confusing actually; to me, a News Channel is one that has news on all the time, or most of the time, kind of like CNN was before you couldn't watch it without pulling a face while you raced to change the channel to something that wouldn't melt your head. It also subsumed the individual station identity, which I felt should always include the call-sign. But it worked for KGW, and it (or some version - in 2008, a version of the NewsChannel 8 logo mostly based on the FF DIN font once again highlighting the call-sign debuted, of which I approved) served stalwart duty as KGW's identity for nearly 20 years.

Reently, Belo, the company which owned KGW (and its Seattle sisters, KING and KIRO) underwent a major rearrangement, dividing its print media from its broadcast media into two separate companies. Subsequently, the broadcast media side was purchased by Gannett (the same company that publishes both USA Today and, locally, the Statesman-Journal down Salem way). And the changes rang.

This is was KGW's NewsChannel 8's logo:

… and this is KGW 8's logo now:

KGW's new logo look approaches design by pretty much eschewing design. It's a simple, stark thing now, the only thing brought forward being the the unique detail of the bevelled end of the G's cross-bar, which I've tried to use to identify the font this was constructed out of with, so far, no success (the closest WhatTheFont seems to come to is the 205 foundry's Maax Bold) (Update here: It's my understanding now that the font used here is Gotham, and KGW's graphic design king Jeff Patterson did that tweaking). It wins on the uncomplicated level, proving that sometimes next-to-no design is actually pretty successful design.

Another thing that this design does do fairly well is mesh with the station's new graphics. Gannett's USA Today original design brought us sections with color-coding, and KGW's new on-air graphic approach follows this logic too. Reading what I could get and following what I could on-line reveals that Gannett has a sort of empire style and all the broadcast properties carry this forward, including KGW's new website design, which is clear, clean, fairly tight, and works a great deal like USA Today's website does. The fonts on the website, according to the WhatFont bookmarklet I have installed in my Opera browser, indicate 2 fonts used overall: A version of Futura developed especially for USA Today's use called Futura Today, used for the menu headers across the top of the page, and Arial, which seems to be used for pretty much everything else.

And it all clicks pretty well together, proving that if you use it just right, Arial can be an asset rather than looking like the font you used because you didn't feel like going with anything other than the default.

The lower-thirds of the KGW news on-air presentation have been thoroughly revamped. They're harder-working now: the story being reported on occupies the large upper portion of the strip, with a colored line along the top indicating the 'department' the story falls into. Along the skinnier portion of the new chyron, the next three stories coming up are announced, with a similar colored bar immediately to each story's left noting their department:

The color along the top of SUPERHEROES SURPRISE BURN VICTIM here is purple, denoting a Feature story; the three upcoming stories have blue bars, denoting Local stories. They have a congruence with the USA Today scheme (they use the same colors for Weather and for Money, for example). While each report is running, if location or person ID information becomes necessary to display, the large title moves down and the necessary information appears in a smaller point-size in gray superior to the large title.

That's not all, of course. As these YouTube clips will show, the same approach is now being used by KGW's sisters. KING-5 in Seattle's looks like this (and gives a snappy example of how the new chyron works):



… and this is what NWCN's (Northwest Cable News) opening looks like now …



I've watched the KGW deploying of same, and I actually like it a great deal. Teasing stories is a tactic the programs use to keep you tuned in, and I understand this, but there's teasing and there's aggravating. Seeing exactly what they have coming up is a Good Thing™ and I very much approve.

Even though KGW is essentially using Gannett empire style, which is a sort of thing I usually dread, I find myself having to admit that, if it's a uniform thing, at least it does its job well. It's hard to be concise and informative, and on that level, at least, it's a success. 

[pdx_TV] A Look In To KGW's Studio On the Square #kgwnow

3103.

I am a kid of the TV age, for better and for worse and for all that this implies.

There are good sides to that. TV introduced me to the my Other Woman, the Other Love Of My Life: the city of Portland. Unlike most, at least I can say I'm a native Oregonian, but if I had it to do over again, I would that my Mom and Dad lived up here.

I'd say we'd have been a good fit in Montavilla. As it is, I live in Greater Russellville, so at least that worked out.

But TV studios, for me, is where a lot of magic occurs. It is a kind of temple for me. I never got the chance to be on Ramblin' Rod, like a lot of my fellow kids did, nor even ironically, as a young adult. And when I finally became a Portlander full-time, one of the first things I did was go around to all the TV stations … KOIN, KGW, KATU, KPTV … and just get a good look at them. To say I'd been.

For a time, I lived on SE 8th Avenue just south of Powell Blvd. That was the time before whoever owns KPTV bought it and moved it out to Beaverton, when it had that beautiful building, resplendent with the big neon 12 in the tower at the corner of the building. There was an ineffable satisfaction in living within a half-mile of the station that gave me Perry Mason so faithfully.

That, as they say, was then … though it looks much the same from the front end, ownerships have changed, philosophies have changed. There isn't even a Fisher Broadcasting any more. But the big guns are still stalking the streets of our now two-horse town (I believe we upgraded from one-horse sometime in 2007) and they still generate fascination and I am still mad curious at what it looks like behind the scenes. So, when KGW NewsChannel 8 said we could all come down and get tours of the Studio On The Square, in Pioneer Courthouse Square well …

It was from 10 AM to 2 PM last Saturday, the 31st. Arriving at the Square itself we saw, laid upon it, a labyrinth of colorful flowers, a hypnotic pattern. It's the annual Festival of Flowers, and this year, they've decided on a labyrinth design with a graphic pattern celebrating the Square's 30th anniversary. It'll be up until the 10th of June, and I understand you can buy the blossoms as the event wears on. But that, as mentioned, was not why we where there … well, not the main reason. It did give the eye something delightful to linger on as we waited to get in.

This was a day to be somewhere as early as you could. Not only was the weather strictly beautiful, a wonderful Oregon Spring day where the sun was bright, it was warm and not too warm, and not too humid, so waiting outside wasn't an ordeal. Now the Studio On The Square is on the southeast corner of the Square, near the intersection of SW 6th Avenue and Yamhill Street. A big window looks out onto a stairwell that leads up to the ground level of the Square itself. On the level over the studio, the roof, was arranged a long shelter so that those who came could wait out of the direct sun.

It was needed.

Looks like they're gonna need a bigger boat.

We stood by in a line while we were taken down in groups of 30 at a time. They were neat and organized and precise … they knew what sort of fanbase they were dealing with here. In the meantime, a familiar face came out to enjoy some sun and some coffee:

That's KGW's Wayne Havrelly, whom we rather enjoy. You see him on weekends mostly, and doing reporting during the week.

The news cameraguys were out in force, and there was a bit of a moment of recognition between two documentarians … one, professional, the other, yours truly, self-made. Still, I felt a bit of solidarity here …

iSeeYouSeeingMe

 … and the chance to get a picture of someone taking a picture of you taking a picture of them taking a picture of you should never be passed up. It was a cool moment and I know it was, because just as he took down the camera, he gave me a peace-sign.

Dude, that was most cool of you.

We were admitted, finally, to the area under the Square through the door on the right of the studio window. While we waited for the previous group to clear out we had one of the producers tell us all about the Square, point out the videos that were running on the screens beside the big window in, and get us all ready and enthusiastic about it (we all brought our happy, there wasn't much priming to do there). Meantime, somehow, that Havrelly fellah slipped back into the building and had to slip past the madding crowd to get back out. Here, I caught him as he got past us.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Wayne Havrelly.
He's pretty hard to pin down, however.

At last, in … now, I do know something of the history of this space. Five years ago, before it was KGW's Studio on the Square, it was a branch of the Powell's Books empire … Powell's Travel Store. It stocked maps, travel guides, travel accessories … it even had a currency exchange counter. I loved it because you could find city maps from all over the USA of small towns that you'd never heard of. When the Travel Store closed, those items removed to just off the top of the store in the Red Room, until the stock was depleted, and that is now history.

But they're making history of their own in the space that used to be the Travel Store. And one other thing. When that space was planned, I'm certain they did not envision it to be a television studio or anything like it. Now, when you look at the set, with Brenda and Russ behind the desk, it has a certain size to it.

You enter this studio, and you and the thirty other lucky Golden Ticket winners and the newsies within are all there … and it feels tiny. Just to the left, as we came in, were all the computers that the weather 'casters use to put together the reports. Less than ten feet away, on the right from that, is a big green wall in front of which the weather 'caster stands. Less than ten feet away from that is the anchor desk.

Right foreground, Brenda Braxton. Above, LIGHTS!!!!

This was once a smallish bookstore. Now, it's a smallish TV studio. It's a bit like the TARDIS, in a way; it's bigger on the inside, but only on TV.

On your left, Reggie Aqui. Against the green wall
chatting with a fan, Steph Stricklen.

This next photo gives an very good idea of the size of the set. There, on the left is morning anchor Russ Lewis; on the right, signing an autograph, is morning weatherguy Nick Allard. Now, Russ is about average height, and Nick is tall (well, not Steve-Dunn-tall … that guy's a freakin' Sequoia). And you can see how close the overhead lighting and how wide that anchor desk really is.

It felt about the size of your average dinner table.

And one thing I noticed about Nick Allard … with fashionably-stubbled visage, he bears a striking resemblance to Wil Wheaton. Seriously. He looked just like him!

Remembering back to our experience at KOPB last month, where it was a leisurely, self-guided tour and you could chat as long as the personalities had time, very laid back, this was like speed-dating. And that's no sin on their part … they were swamped with people who just wanted to see the people they liked on the news and get a look at the place they worked at. All the KGW newsies were very sweet and very affable, and up for as many photos as you wanted to take with them.

Shepherding us fans through there must have been like herding cats. And KGW has lots of Portlanders that love them; when we got there, the line just barely fit under the shelter. By the time we left the studio, it extended almost all the way back to the corner of Broadway and Yamhill.

We Portlanders love our newspeople. And I'll bet those newspeople were some tuckered newspeople by the end of this 'do. God bless 'em. Seriously. I could not keep up with that pace.

Reggie and Steph with a young fan in front
of the weather wall

And here's a real look behind the scense … the anchor desk. Below can be seen the computer that runs the electronics built into the anchor's desktop. The seats were rather comfortable.

In the distance, with his arms crossed: Nick Allard

I got to say hi to one … Reggie Aqui. I must say, his aplomb in affably meeting someone who was a little overcome in the crush of people and therefore without his usual velvet wit (that is to say, Yours Truly) I will sincerely be in awe of:

"Hi! I'm Sam."
"I'm Reggie Aqui"
"I know."

I could write speeches for the President, genius, SHEER FREAKING GENIUS!!!

One more picture for now. This is what the Studio on the Square looks like to Brenda or Russ every morning.

About the size of a medium size classroom. I recall when KATU invited a bunch of us bloggers over to the studio a while back, and I got the first look I ever had, in real life, of a television studio. I was astounded. Not only did KATU vid the news there, but on the other side of the studio was the set for AM/NW. That studio was a very large room but you cram two shows' sets in them and all of a sudden it becomes very small; even the seats for the AM/NW audience were in there, hidden behind a curtain. But it's all in the way you frame it. 

That guy in the lower right corner there? Stalker. Has to be.

I'd suggest a restraining order. Otherwise, you'll have nothing but fans tromping through the studio all the time. 

Don't know what gave me that idea, but there it is.

Thanks for the peek, KGW. You guys rock.

[pdx] When Soylent News™ Stops Consuming People, It Will Eat Itself

3083.

This just in, via Randy Stapilus, blogmaster at the Ridenbaugh Press:

Post by Randy Stapilus.

Ai, yi, and and an ever lovin' yi. If Randy's source is correct then the circulation at The Formerly Big O is now about 63 percent of what it was … six months ago? 

Six months? 

Holy moly.

I make a lot of fun of the decline of The O. I do it basically to keep from crying and dying inside. Portland, Oregon is the 26th largest city in the fourth most populous country in the history of countries. Our 'daily' (not if you get it delivered any more, it ain't, of course), in its new 'fun size', once had bigger ambitions than the number of clicks it could get on a story at the website. It hurts, so I wiggle my ears and stick my tongue out and remind you all that Tuesday is Soylent News™ day, but I'm not happy about this. Not really. I daren't think they care, either; they stopped caring about my level of the socio-economic strata some time ago.

For a time, I delivered the pape, when I was a younger dude. True story.

A great American city deserves a great American newspaper. Sadly, The Oregonian is no longer that paper. Gone are the voices that used to make it great, and I see no Margie Boulét, no Phil Stanford, and certianly no Jonathan Nicholas (remember him, folks?), no 'appointment column reading'.

But the comics are in color, at least. Yay.

Maybe The Columbian can speak for us? They seem to still publish a newspaper intended for grownups, 7 days a week. The Statesman-Journal's looking better and better, all of a sudden, and at least it's published in the state capital. That ought to count for something.

In the meantime, the readership of Soylent News™ is apparently precipitously dwindling … but, don't think of it as deserting the paper.

We're just conciously decoupling.

Remember, Tuesday is Soylent News™ day.

[pdx] Tom Peterson and Parkinson's Disease

3070.

I've documented hereunto my affection for growing up in the age of Tom Peterson. The man was Portland's quintessential salesman, always smiling, always selling. Growing up, watching Portland Wrestling, with Tom good-naturedly hawking Xonix TVs in the crow's nest at the Portland Sports Arena next to Frank Bonnema … you can't really say you're an Oregonian kid unless you have some resonance with that.

Tom's store, after ups, downs, Stereo Super Stores, bankruptcy, resurgam, addition of Gloria to the famous logo, and final closing, was the keynote and heartbeat for Portland advertising for so very many years. Whether or not you would ever shop there, you'd take him to your heart. That smiling face just couldn't ever be mean to anyone.

If you hit him up on the right days, you could get a free haircut, too. Any style you wanted, as long as it looked like Tom's.

Tom's visage beatifying SE 82nd And Foster Road, back in the day.
©2009, Samuel John Klein, all rights reserved

He was out there and loved what he did. Some Taoist lesson in there somewhere, I'm sure.

The Tao of Tom.

As broken on KPTV-12 (the station where you'd most likely see him), he's advancing into the thick of his battle with Parkinson's disease, the one thing … short of absolute annihilation … that would have stopped him from selling. In honor of this bright spot of just plain decent human from back in the day, then …

You can see the video at KPTV's web page via this link. Have a hanky or two ready … seriously, it's kind of hard to watch, especially if you remembered his smiling face from all those commercials, and especially if you went down to 82nd and Foster and bought something from him. Xonix TVs are forever, you know … a haircut, well, it'll grow back.

I'm feeling a most existential sadness here. When Tom finally leaves us, as he must, a bright little part of silly, innocent Portland will kind of go with him.

And I'll miss it. Because I was there for that. It'll be losing a friend I never had the chance to meet.

Facebook has a group for people who remember the awesome, if you're interested: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Petersons/243695409036413. I'm recommending this, of course.

The Portland Mercury has a bit at http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2014/04/25/tom-peterson-has-parkinsons-glorias-doing-great as well.

[design] Breaking News: The New Look of KOIN Channel 6

3064.

The KOIN Local 6 identity for The House That Mike Donahue Helped Build is no more. Welcome to the new KOIN 6:

Pretty spiff and shiny, no?

I'm glad they were finally able to pull it all together and give it a nice rollout. That said, I'm going to mourn the passing of the KOIN Local 6 approach. It was an admirable attempt and ought to be lauded. Boasting about being local, in a media environment that seems, in markets like Portland, driven from somewhere else, is a good thing and can work if brought off right. The obstacle there, of course, is figuring out how to sell it, which is a simple thing … well, not much more difficult than trying to solve Rubik's Cube with gloves on and a blindfold, I suppose.

In Portland, Local sells. Oddly, nobody was buying. No, I can't figure it out either.

The new logo is a modern treatment on what is actually an old approach … the classic callsign-channel number presentation. It recalls the classic look of the 6 … usually designed into a containing frame, for 6 this was a circle, until the Local 6 branding happened. The modern fashion is the quadrilateral, with the clipped corner an interesting filip. The other big substantive change is the introduction of a new tagling, Watching Out For You, which reflects the kind of advocacy investigative journalism that KOIN has latterly been working very hard to own locally.

Over the past few weeks, KOIN 6's morning report, which was called Right Now, was delivered by Chad Carter and Elishah Oesch in front of a rather cozy-looking brick backdrop while the old set was being remodeled. Today was the big reveal. KOIN has a video that gives some behind-the-scenes time-lapses which is most fun to watch, and you should go there to do this thing because the embed code just won't work here.

However, a video hosted at YouTube gives a clear idea of the new approach of the new look:



The opening (which is not yet available, so you'll have to tune in to see it) features an aerial view of the KOIN Tower, which is perfect. When your headquarters is housed in one of the most recognizable buildings (that just so happens to be named for you) in a widely-admired major American city, you're a stone fool if you don't hype that.

So, welcome KOIN 6. You're looking mighty fine.