EDITOR’S NOTE: The Photo Link is below, But FIRST…READ THIS for context. Some of the images posted are so fresh, no captions have yet to be added. MANY THANKS to our great friend Dennis Degan for these beautiful images.
Disney’s new building at 7 Hudson Square consolidates all of ABC’s New York City operations into one building, occupying an entire city block. Within the building are TV, podcast and radio studios of various sizes, ranging from small 10×12 rooms housing audio booths to giant TV studios, the 3 largest of which are 120×60 ft, each. Those 3 large studios are in the basement of the building, 30 feet below street level. Also in the basement are two ESPN studios designated Studio X and Studio Y. These two 40×40 ft studios have no associated control room as they are remotely operated by ESPN in Bristol, CT.
In addition to the 5 studios in the basement, there are 14 more studios on the 4th floor, the largest of which are the two studios for WABC-TV’s Eyewitness News and ABC’s World News Tonight. Those two studios designated 4D (WABC-TV) and 4E (WNT or ‘World News Tonight’) are each 50×50 and are adjacent to each other in the center of the building, isolated from outside noise.
Control rooms are designated PCR and range from numbers 1 through 3 and 41 through 48. Control rooms are not dedicated to a particular studio space but are regularly assigned to maintain consistency. For example, Studio A (the ‘Kelly & Mark’ studio) is usually produced through PCR-1 (Production Control Room). ‘The View’ and ‘The Tamron Hall Show’ are both shot in Studio B and use PCR-2. ‘Good Morning America’ is shot in Studio C and uses PCR-3. ‘World News Tonight’ originates from Studio 4E and is controlled through PCR-43. WABC-TV’s ‘Eyewitness News’ comes from Studio 4D and is controlled through PCR-47.
There are resources on other floors as well. Graphics is on the 5th floor and takes up almost a third of the northeast corner of that floor. 7 camera shading rooms are also on the 5th floor. Video Playback and Editing are on the 6th floor. There are 7 Playback rooms called MPR’s (Multi-Purpose Rooms) each dedicated to the various shows produced in the building. MPR’s feed recorded video clips to the control rooms. MPR-1 mainly is used with live shows including GMA and WNT through PCR-3 for GMA and PCR-43 for WNT. MPR-2 is the ‘Fix’ room where GMA and WNT are updated or revised for later time zones. MPR-3 serves ABC News Live, the live news streaming service coming from PCR-42. MPR-4 is the playback room for Special Events (which usually uses PCR-43 as the control room) while MPR-5 is used by ‘Live with Kelly & Mark’ in PCR-1. MPR-6 is for ‘The View’ and ‘Tamron Hall Show’ in PCR-2. MPR-7 is reserved for use by WABC-TV.
The 6th floor Newsroom is a vast space that extends an entire block from Spring Street to VanDam Street and is about 100 ft wide. Adjacent to the Newsroom is the Media Center where incoming feeds are captured for use by the more than 100 Avid editing stations in the building. The monitor wall displays thousands of incoming feeds and is about 150 ft long.
WABC-TV has 3 ‘Flash’ studios that are open to the nearby offices at the west side of the main Newsroom. There are also remotely controlled cameras in several locations around the Newsroom for correspondents’ standup shots, used by both local and network staff.
In addition to the editing stations on the 6th floor, there are about 80 Avid editing rooms on the 7th floor where long-form editing is done. Additionally on the 7th floor is an audio mix room and color-correction room. These facilities are used to produce shows such as 20/20 as well as special long-form programs both for the network and for streaming.
ABC Radio, now known as ABC Audio, has its own resources consisting of 3 main studios on the 4th floor.
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