‘News Hour’ rebranding digital and social operations as ‘PBS News’

“PBS News Hour” is rebranding its digital and social profiles on June 17, 2024, a week after its flagship broadcast debuted its new set and graphics — as well as making a slight change to how it styles its own name.

While the iconic “PBS NewsHour” will retain its name for the Monday through Friday television broadcast, “PBS News” will become the preferred name on digital and social media. 

The weekend broadcast will also continue to be known as “PBS News Weekend.”

Finally, the broadcast will no longer make “NewsHour” one word in camel case, but rather two separate words: “News Hour.”

“The PBS News Hour, our nightly broadcast co-anchored by Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett, remains the flagship of our newsroom as we approach nearly 50 years on the air,” said senior executive producer of PBS News Hour and WETA senior vice president Sara Just, in a statement. “Today, all of us consume news across multiple platforms. Audiences encounter our journalism on social media feeds, in news feeds, in live streaming, in primetime specials and breaking news events. Our adjustments to our branding makes it clear that you can rely on PBS News journalism for reliable, trustworthy insight into the events and stories that shape our world and our lives, wherever they encounter it.”

The rebranding is centered around the notion that the broadcast continues to expand beyond just an hour. This change makes the names more consistent across the weekend and digital arms.

The approach allows the broadcast to retain its well-know name on TV — where it’s most appropriate given the weekday edition’s runtime — while also branching out beyond the notion of a 60-minute runtime elsewhere.

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The brand’s owned and operated digital and social platforms will implement new “PBS News” branding starting June 17 with additional updates to social handles and URLs in the coming weeks, WETA noted.

Along with the new name, WETA also released new logos for PBS News and “PBS NewsHour,” which drop the use of Avenir in favor of the bespoke PBS Sans font.

Since 2019, average website users are up 44%, at nearly 7.5 million, while average monthly YouTube video views are up 27% at 33 million, according to PBS data.

WETA, the flagship public media station in the nation’s capital, recently completed a $58 million expansion project of its Arlington headquarters, including the creation of new studios and editorial offices for PBS News. The multi-year capital campaign and construction project was led by WETA president and chief executive Sharon Percy Rockefeller.

The rebrand is a continuation of efforts first launched in 2023 when the Saturday and Sunday broadcast moved production from WNET in New York to News Hour Productions, a WETA subsidiary, and rebranded as PBS News Weekend, now anchored by John Yang.

‘PBS News Hour’ scales up aesthetic for sprawling new studio, facility

Since its inception in 1975 “PBS News Hour” had been produced out of a large studio in WETA’s aging production center, located a few blocks away from its Arlington headquarters. The new studio, designed by Eric Siegel and George Allison with lighting design by Dennis Size, will also be used by “PBS News Weekend” and “Washington Week with The Atlantic,” and will allow for PBS News special programming to be more easily incorporated into the same space.

The graphic redesign was led by PBS News creative director for broadcast Kojo Boateng including the logo redesign in partnership with Lippincott and the broadcast opening titles designed in partnership with Adolescent.