CBS TV stations launching ‘decentralized’ group graphics team

Paramount Global has announced plans to create a “decentralized” group design team to serve its owned television stations — a move that will result in job cuts.

The change at CBS Television Stations takes effect June 12, 2023, with eight design team members staffers selected to be part of the team while remaining in the market where they are currently based.

Judy Flook and Lara Klinkhammer will serve as group art directors with Bill Ritchotte and Robinson Fernandez as motion designers and Jo-Anne Scotto, Manny Torres and Nate Finston lending their expertise in Chyron systems.

These team members will have responsibility for creating and sharing graphics assets across the group’s stations. Sean Walkup, who was recently elevated to vice president and group design director will manage the team.

Stations are still keeping an unspecified number of design staff in each market as well.

The group is parting ways with multiple staffers, though it was not immediately clear how many lost their jobs. The layoffs come after Paramount cut jobs in its cable division earlier in the year as part of a companywide cost-cutting strategy. 

The move comes as the network wraps up rolling out a groupwide graphics package that is similar to designs used at CBS, CBS News, CBS Sports and the CBS News Streaming Network.

Although variations of the package do exist, mainly in color palettes and textural elements, nearly every visual across these divisions shares a typographic look thanks to the extensive use of TT Norms. The font was previously used in the logo for ViacomCBS, the former name of Paramount Global, and continues to be used at other divisions such as CBS Media Ventures. 

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The design update is arguably one of the most comprehensive and wide-reaching standardization efforts. While other TV station groups often share graphics packages, these typically are not aligned with network-level looks and there are often significant design variations across each network’s broadcasts. Historically it has also been common practice for sports divisions to have completely different look; CBS Sports does have its own distinct look, as do most of the network’s other divisions and shows, but it still ties back to the network-wide look.