‘Nightly’ appears to be trying out some new tease formats

“NBC Nightly News” has been tweaking how it teases stories coming up after the next commercial break.

The changes were spurred way back on Sept. 13, 2021 when the newscast moved to Studio 1A and introduced updated video wall graphics and select fullscreen animations.

The new look centers around a flatter look driven by outline versions of typography, including in the “Coming up” and “Next” wipes that appear on screen when Lester Holt tells viewers what’s on deck after the break.

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However, the broadcast has, somewhat inexplicably, retained its existing lower third inserts, including the ones used during these “coming up” segments, frequently resulting in a rather odd mix of looks.

In this September 2021 screen capture, elements from the existing graphics package (namely the blue and gold gradient, typography and lower third style element) are mixed with the new look — which uses the bright blue outline throughout.

Overall, the new look “Nightly” appears to be settling into is more flat and focused on typography, subtle accents and distinctive animations as opposed to a look centered around laser lines and light bursts often arranged in a 3D space.

However, “Nightly” has been mixing things up recently, though the hybrid look still pops up fairly frequently.

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For select teases, Holt now appears on camera for the entire time, with one of the studio video walls showing both the animated wipe and imagery from the upcoming story along with a text headline overlay.

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This can be done at both the anchor desk and when Holt stands in front of the movable LED panels in front of the studio windows.

View on Giphy

On Monday, Feb. 21, 2022, the broadcast also showed fullscreen video with just the blue border, though it’s not entirely clear if that was meant to be done that way or if it was simply a case of the graphic not inserting correctly.

The headline teases that come at the top of the show before the open remain unchanged.

“Nightly” also continues to have Holt give an audio only tease at the end of the extended A block. NBC, like other networks, have shifted to offering more content before the first break of their signature evening newscasts, typically around 10 to 12 minutes.

Holt typically gives a quick tease in front of a generic show logo graphic before the broadcast crashes to black. 

An example of the ‘NBC Nightly News’ commercial break wraparound graphic. The commercial has been blurred by NewscastStudio in this screen capture.

It then shows a 60 second network level break that had been including a branded “squeezeback” with teases running along the bottom and countdown on top, though this has disappeared in recent weeks.

Networks have also been trying out similar breaks with entertainment programming, with Fox even branding them as “Fox Fast Breaks.” In some cases, the network shows commercials fullscreen while in others it wraps them in a graphic with countdown.