Thursday, March 9, 2000

KIII designs new set to mimic CNN's bustling background

KIII finally has a new address. And as of Saturday night, the ABC affiliate's top-rated newscasts will have a fresh new look.
   Starting with the 10 p.m. edition of "Eyewitness News" Saturday, viewers will see KIII's new newsroom set inside the just-completed studios at 5002 South Padre Island Drive. KIII's last newscast on its current set will be at 10 p.m. Friday. To make the switch, KIII will not air a 6 p.m. Saturday newscast.
   All week the station has been shifting personnel and equipment to the new red, white and blue building, which has been under construction since early last year. The news set will also incorporate KIII's signature colors, said corporate operations manager Bob White.
   "You've never seen anything like our new set. It will look more like newscasts in Dallas or Houston. I think it will raise the bar as far as how news is presented on television in Corpus Christi," White said.
   Station owner Mike McKinnon designed the "Eyewitness News" set himself, White said, modeling it on the one used at KUSI, the McKinnon station in San Diego, Calif. The main anchor desk will sit inside the newsroom environment, instead of apart from it, said White, and reporters will occasionally be glimpsed in the background (similar to CNN's anchor desk set-up).
   Anchors and reporters at KIII have been rehearsing on the new set since last week, getting used to different camera moves.
   The current KIII news studio was given a minor brightening up last spring, but the station hasn't had a complete makeover of its primary news set for at least a decade, said White.
   Luring Hispanics
   Two major premium cable channels are locking onto Hispanic viewers. HBO announced this week that it's launching HBO Latino in the fall. The new network, the seventh in HBO's tier of movie-oriented offshoots, will program the HBO series "Oz," "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos" dubbed in Spanish and will also offer new Spanish-language movies and series.
   Corpus Christi cable viewers may have to wait a while to add HBO Latino to their menu of programs, however. AT&T Cable, the area's largest cable provider, said its system will be "channel-locked" for at least another 12 to 18 months and can't add any new channels till then.
   According to the network, 19 percent of Hispanic households in the United States already subscribe to HBO.
   Meanwhile, Showtime reaches out to the Hispanic cable audience with a new 22-part drama series in June called "Resurrection Blvd." Starring Elizabeth Pena, Cheech Marin, Nestor Carbonell and Paul Rodriguez, the show focuses on the Santiagos, an East L.A. family with a long legacy in the world of prizefighting.
   AT&T and Showtime are hoping to bring some of the series' stars to Corpus Christi for personal appearances around the time of the show's June debut, said the cable company's spokesman, Vicki Triplett.
   All AT&T subscribers can check out HBO, Showtime and Starz movies for free this weekend. The cable provider is offering previews of the premium channels Friday, Saturday and Sunday on AT&T channel 11 (pre-empting WGN).
  
  

 
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