Graphics Woes for WCPO

So who were those people sports anchor Dennis Janson said goodbye to at the end of Friday’s sportscast? They were three veterans of Channel 9’s art department – Jim Steeves (18 years), Mel MacArthur (15 years) and John LaRoche (13 years) — who worked their last day on Friday. They lost their jobs as part of a companywide consolidation of the 10 Scripps TV station art department duties shifted to the Tampa station.

I’m told that the Ch 9 graphics are now being built by news producers in the newsroom using a template system. This started Oct. 23. All 10 Scripps stations will soon have the same graphics package. I’m told the new “desert brown” graphics originated at the Scripps station in Phoenix. Or is it a “rust” color for Scripps’ stations in Detroit, Cleveland or Cincinnati? Says one Ch 9 insider: “We went from the best (graphics on TV in town) to the worst pretty much overnight.”