KSDK (NewsChannel 5), the Gannett NBC affiliate in St. Louis, plans to elevate its news, sports and other local programming to HD on Feb. 6 -- just prior to NBC's 17-day coverage of the Winter Olympics in Torino, which NBC Universal says will contain record HD coverage for an Olympic venue. The St. Louis broadcaster recently announced its specific HD launch date, following an on-air announcement on its newscast back in November that it planned to go HD with local content.
"Our audience will see some breathtaking changes come February 6th," said KSDK President/General Manager Lynn Beall, in a statement. "It doesn't matter whether you own an HD set -- you are going to notice the difference! This change to high definition basically means we're totally re-engineering our entire facility. All of our local news and local programming will be broadcast in HD."
NewsChannel 5's news studio is two stories high and includes an integrated interview set, reporter stand-up areas, and a new Weather Plus center. Several 16:9 monitors are incorporated into the new set up, along with state-of-the-art lighting and Sony HD studio robotic cameras.
