‘Nightly News’ tinkers with video wall graphics, lighting cues in days since new look debuted

After launching an updated set and new on-set video wall graphics Monday, Nov. 9, 2020, “NBC Nightly News” has continued to tweak its on air look – something that’s hardly uncommon after these types of debuts.

In many instances, the network has toned down the use of the textural dot elements, particularly on the “jigsaw” LED panel array to the left of the “tower” in the studio.

The ‘jigsaw’ LED panels, left, are show in their original design on Monday, Nov. 9, 2020. By Nov. 10, 2020, the design was updated to a darker look with more subtle dot pattern.

When the new look debuted, these panels had a lighter background behind the dots, NBC peacock and “breaking news” banner which also made the dots themselves much more prominent because they were a brighter blue.

By Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, however, this area had been redesigned to have a dark background, light colored dots and a faded blue peacock and significantly less dots on both the “breaking news” and generic “Nightly News” banded versions.

The network reduced the use of the red, white and blue light fresnel style lighting fixtures on the header behind anchor Lester Holt that also frames in the vista video wall alcove, either only using white on every other instrument of leaving them off entirely during anchor segments.

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That toned down use of color also was been tinkered with over the past few days.

The backlit wall in the footprint of the original Studio 3C (sometimes referred to as 3A or 3AW) that sits several feet behind the LED tower and parts of the jigsaw array started out being mostly red throughout the broadcast but did to a warm orange (one of the common picks for the previous iteration of the set) during the Nov. 9 kicker.