CBS debuts reimagined ‘Evening News’ with clean graphics, LED volume set

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“CBS Evening News” launched its latest iteration Jan. 27, 2025, with a distinct format emphasizing long-form storytelling alongside a new anchor team and streamlined graphics.
As previously reported, the broadcast moved back to Studio 47 in the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, which was its longtime home before moving to Washington, D.C., in 2019.
For the latest “Evening,” CBS installed a three-wall LED volume that faces the newsroom area, which was updated in 2017 and is now known as the CBS News Hub. The area also includes some LED floor tiles.
The broadcast kicked off with an updated open, bringing back the theme music composed for the broadcast by Trivers/Myers Music and first introduced in 1987, dropping the more recent take on the theme from 2022.
The broadcast also dispensed with tease headlines.
The open animation now focuses heavily on the curves of the CBS Eye logo, first showcasing it fading up from black to take on a shadowed gray-white color scheme accented with a bright blue, gold and orange gradient ring.
The lighter-toned background then fades out in favor of a deep blue shade with an array of subtle dots and the show’s logo appearing inside the colored ring that flowed out of the center of the Eye.
A similar look, with additional curves blended into the background and an animated world map pattern created with the dots, appears throughout the broadcast as a “default” background behind anchors when they are on camera without any specific topical graphic.
In many ways, the dark shadows and lighter grays are more of a standout look than the blue background, which is still elegant but feels like “yet another blue” for broadcast graphics.
The broadcast includes a voiceover announcement reading “From CBS News in New York, this is the ‘CBS Evening News,'” but forgoes mention of anchor names (“Evening” has also been officially retitled without any “with” names).
Perhaps most notable is that the “Evening” now sparingly uses lower thirds. Gone are the story headline banners that many newscasts leave on-screen nearly the entire time a story runs. “Evening” also cut down on traditional lower thirds identifying correspondents and interviewees, instead preferring to identify them through the correspondent’s voiceover.
When lower thirds appear, they do so with elegant simplicity: two lines of text set in front of a subtle blue gradient. There are notably no boxes or rules in the various portions of standard banners.
These graphics, as well as the video wall and package animations, all convey an ultra-clean look that’s hard not to compare to European designs (as well as the U.S.-based “PBS News Hour”), though CBS does work in a bit more color and texture than these broadcasters typically would.
On set, the broadcast takes advantage of its volume and virtual set extensions to create the illusion that the space has wood headers and footers backed with simulated window-like “viewports” and separate video walls.
On the debut edition, co-anchors Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson sat at the new anchor desk in front of a simulated video wall graphic in bold red tied into the launch of the Chinese AI app DeepSeek, which was the broadcast’s lead story. By comparison, “NBC Nightly News” and “ABC World News Tonight” both led with immigration raids.
It appears the idea is to fill the simulated video walls with either still or video imagery or more collage-style animations with the new circular logo in the center of the main video wall between the anchors; on side shots, the logo remains in the same place but, thanks to the different framing, appears to be on the left side of the screen out from behind the anchors.
The DeepSeek story was used as an opportunity for Washington, D.C.-based “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, who is expected to appear regularly on “Evening” to report on the political and national security ramifications of the AI service.
Brennan’s image was shown on the simulated video wall far right, with wide shots used to show DuBois and Dickerson at the anchor desk facing toward her image. The camera right video wall space farther back showcased matching red graphics and the headline “The AI Threat” set in the sans serif Publico typeface.
Brennan appeared on camera sitting in front of the image of a stylized sunset view of the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool behind her with the show’s new circular logo and the identifier “Washington, D.C.” over her left shoulder.
Near the end of the A block, the broadcast included a “RoundUp” section designed to be a summary of the day’s news. This starts with a wide side shot showing the segment name and date appearing on the camera’s right video walls using an entrance animation that emphasizes forward motion and looks to the CBS Eye and “Evening” logo shape for its curved tips.
A tighter shot then focused on the forward video wall, which switched to display imagery related to mudslides in California before the video became fullscreen.


Each of the RoundUp stories included a narrow column of dot accents on the left side of the screen and Publico headline below. The main headline was farther up the screen than most traditional story banners and the look also includes a subtle boxed-in topical label for each story.
To transition between stories, a white circle to the left of the headline jumps about halfway up the view before sliding back down at a slower speed, an effect that conjures the swiping motion made popular by smart phones and apps. To drive home the motion, the dots also briefly become slightly blurred while a gradient is used to to briefly cover the next image as it slides down from the top of the screen.
Each story in the RoundUp came in at about 10 seconds worth of screen time with an anchor voiceover, meaning the summary was short to the point of being just a bit more than a headline and lede. This, by the way, was where the ICE raids were finally mentioned, with a total of about 8 seconds being devoted to a story ABC and NBC led with.


After the RoundUp, the anchors appeared back on screen with the default blue “Evening” background while tossing to two back-to-back teases. Both of these featured correspondents appearing on screen saying their name and dateline before offering a brief summary of the story. This was accompanied with corresponding video shown fullscreen with a more subtle version of the RoundUp graphics appearing. The second correspondent then tossed to break, rather than having the anchors reappear.
Along with that blue background graphic, these non-topical backgrounds are often accompanied with a variety of landscapes depicting various scenery, including ones taken from New York and other places.
Correspondents, including Brennan, are also given more screen time at the end of their packages, typically with a few debrief-style questions between them and Dickerson and DuBois.
Following another break, DuBois stood on-screen to solo intro the evening’s “Eye on America” segment, boasting on-screen credit to the producer and editor. That element may seem familiar because it’s often used on newsmagazine shows such as “60 Minutes.” This shouldn’t be surprising given that “Evening” and “60” share an executive producer and one of the network’s stated goals was to make the broadcast feel more in-depth like a newsmagazine.
It’s interesting to note that “Eye on America” was the only story that on-screen producer and editor credits were shown for, however.


During the intro to “Eye on America,” a topical image of burned wreckage was shown with a gold and orange overlay on the forward simulated video wall, while the other panel, which spent much of its time only partially visible, sported a sunset skyline rather than an image designed to match the fire look. The anchor outro on the segment used a generic sunset horizon view on the forward screen and a leafy mountainous landscape camera left.






Multiple packages aired Jan. 27 featured fullscreen animated graphics using a mix of Publico and the sans serif TT Norms, which is a carryover from the old look and also the network’s default typeface. This was paired with additional hints at the lighter gray-white background.
A similar set of graphics was also used after “Eye on America” aired to tease the following night’s installation of the franchise with a map animation and video footage.


For live tosses to the field, the forward simulated video wall is used to showcase a map of the correspondent’s location, a fullscreen graphic with their name and title and a similar animated circle movement as found in the teases.
“Evening” ended its broadcast with a sort of photographic essay tribute to firefighters from across the country with a voiceover that bounced between DuBois and Dickerson. The segment wasn’t a traditional “kicker” and again appeared to being an attempt at mixing elegant writing with still images.
At the very end of the broadcast, Dickerson and DuBois bid viewers farewell from in front of the blue branded background before the view switched to a wide shot of the studio with a camera and crew member visible.
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tags
CBS Broadcast Center, CBS Evening News, CBS Eye, CBS News, CBS News Hub, john dickerson, LED Floors, LED Volumes, Margaret Brennan, Maurice DuBois, Trivers/Myers Music, TT Norms
categories
Graphics, Heroes, Network Newscast, Networks, Set Design