It was the home of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” for seven months, now Stage One on the Universal Studios lot is being put to use once again.
The facility will be the new home of both the Los Angeles bureau of NBC News and NBC’s local station KNBC. Both are currently housed at NBC studios in nearby Burbank. The announcement was made today by NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker.
“This is a significant investment in our West Coast news operations and ensures that the incredibly talented teams at KNBC and LA’s NBC News Bureau will have the latest technologies and journalistic tools to continue doing what they do best,” said Zucker.
The new 60,000-square-foot, two-story studio and newsroom will house the combined news operations of KNBC and NBC News. A five-story office building will also be retrofitted for technical support and executive offices.
In 2009, NBC spent $50 million dollars rehabbing Stage One, which once housed the Jack Benny show and was used in the productions of the films “Jurassic Park III,” and “Bruce Almighty.”
It October, 2007 NBC Universal announced it was constructing a new state of the art facility on the lot to house KNBC and NBC’s West Coast news operations. But that idea is scrapped with the new plans for Studio One.
Adds NBC News boss Steve Capus, “The Universal facility will be top notch — consisting of the best technology, infrastructure and people in the business.”
Construction is expected to be completed in mid-2012.
More in the press release after the jump.
NBC UNIVERSAL TO CREATE NEW STATE OF THE ART WEST COAST NEWS AND PRODUCTION CENTER
NBC News’s LA Bureau and KNBC to Relocate to Stage One On the Universal Lot in Los Angeles
NEW YORK — September 16, 2010 — NBC Universal will construct a state of the art West Coast newsroom and production center, combining under one roof the LA Bureau of NBC News and KNBC, the local media station in Los Angeles. Located in the epicenter of the Universal Lot in Los Angeles, Stage One will be an all high-definition facility, incorporating the latest technology to create a world-class home of digital journalism and content production. Construction is expected to be completed in mid-2012.
Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal, said, “This is a significant investment in our West Coast news operations and ensures that the incredibly talented teams at KNBC and LA’s NBC News Bureau will have the latest technologies and journalistic tools to continue doing what they do best. It also further consolidates the locations of our businesses, making the Universal Lot the center of our operations on the West Coast.”
Designs for the new 60,000 square foot facility are currently underway. It will feature a two-story studio and newsroom housing both news operations, allowing them to tap into the vast resources of both groups and foster an even greater degree of collaboration between the organizations. The entire workflow of the newsroom will be file-based, and feature the latest technologies and enhancements in keeping with a full-service multi-platform production facility. A new five-story office building will also be retrofitted to house the technical support and executive offices, among other departments.
“The Universal facility will be top notch — consisting of the best technology, infrastructure and people in the business,” said Steve Capus, President of NBC News. “This move represents an extraordinary investment in KNBC and NBC News LA – two of the greatest franchises in broadcast history — soon to have a home befitting their extraordinary work.”
John Wallace, President of NBC Local Media added, “This is an exciting move for KNBC. This state-of-the-art facility will enhance their ability to create and produce quality local news and information across all of the station’s media platforms, expanding their content production and further serving the LA community. It’s an appropriate new home for a world-class local media team, and facilitates even greater collaboration with the phenomenal team at NBC News LA.”
KNBC is the West Coast flagship of the 10 NBC owned-and-operated Local Media stations. It produces more than 30 hours each week of local news and information across its multiple platforms, including the main broadcast channel 4, online at WWW.NBCLA.COM and on the digital channels 4.2 and 4.4. Serving the Los Angeles community since1949, KNBC’s news operation has received nearly every industry award bestowed on local news, including numerous Los Angeles Emmy and Golden Mike Awards, as well as two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and a Peabody Award.
NBC News has been a leading source of global news and information for more than 75 years, first on radio, and today via broadcast and cable television, the Internet, radio and cell phones. Operating around the clock with bureaus in key cities in the U.S. and overseas, NBC News provides immediate coverage and in-depth reporting of major events to a worldwide audience.
For more than a decade, NBC News has served as the dominant force in television news, watched by more Americans than any other news organization. NBC News provides more than 25 hours of weekly programming, including the top-rated Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today and Meet the Press programs. Dateline NBC is the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime. NBC News is the only broadcast news division with an affiliated cable channel, MSNBC, which provides 24-hour-a-day coverage of news events around the globe. MSNBC.com consistently ranks as one of the leading news and information sites on the Internet — winning both of the industry’s top honors for online news in the past year. NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, leverages nearly 80 years of historic news coverage, documentary materials, and current news broadcasts to provide resources for students, teachers, and lifelong learners. TheGrio.com is the first video-centric news community devoted to providing an African-American audience with stories and perspectives that are appealing and relevant but often underrepresented in other national news outlets. NBC Mobile provides news and information updates and show excerpts to cell phone users throughout the day reported by the anchors and correspondents of NBC News, and NBC News Radio produces up-to-the-minute radio reports for affiliated stations in all major markets across the country.