Former WNBC studio to be home of Fallon

WNBC-TV’s former news studio in Rockefeller Center, 6B, will now play host to Jimmy Fallon’s new show debuting in March.

WNBC moved to a new studio upstairs last November as part of the station’s transformation to a local information hub that will support the upcoming 24 hour cable news channel as well as NBC 4 New York News and NBCNewYork.com.

Studio 6B, shown at right, was used for WNBC’s 6, 7 and 11 p.m. newscasts and featured a huge rear projection screen that, when it was installed, was quite innovative. Panoram Technologies, the company behind it, has an interesting case study on its Web site.

Unfortunately, WNBC never made very good use of this impressive – and no doubt expensive – feature of the studio. The vast majority of the time only a loop of the New York City skyline was projected onto the screen, making one wonder why a dura wasn’t a better (and cheaper) option.

It’s also interesting to note that WNBC maintained another set (with dura backgrounds) for its other shows. It really never made a whole lot of sense to have two sets, especially when one was equipped with the ability to instantly change backgrounds.

Unfortunately, we’re betting the RP screen in studio 6B is heading to the digital graveyard, though it would be nice to see NBC, which is facing financial challenges, find a way to reuse such an expensive feature on Fallon’s new set.

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