CBS Philadelphia Drops Eyewitness News, Adopts More Inclusive Branding

By Kevin Eck 

After nearly 60 years (give or take) being known as Eyewitness News, Philadelphia CBS owned station KYW has debuted a new brand without the ’60s era moniker.

While Eyewitness News described the station’s news style, the new brand, Finding Heart in Every Beat, speaks more to the station’s connection to the community it serves.

At first glance, the new brand colors may look oddly similar to another Philadelphia institution, its NFL team the Eagles. But Kelly Frank, general manager of KYW, said that’s not why they chose the green.

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Frank told TVSpy the station was looking for colors that connected with a digital and social media audience as well as its broadcast followers. It also wanted stand out from the sea of sameness in local TV and not shout.

“One of the goals in this entire process was one team, one brand, one content,” said Frank who expressed a desire to unify the social, streaming and broadcast brands with the new look. “If you come to CBS News, Philadelphia, you know what you’re going to get, whatever the distribution that you choose is. I get up in the morning and I go through the Paramount app to get to our local station, and that’s how I consume us on my iPad.”

Frank said dropping the nod to its legacy wasn’t an easy decision, given the history behind the Eyewitness News brand.

“You know Eyewitness News, Al Primo, it was born right here and so much in local news was born here and at this particular station,” said Frank, who added that she had moments of “staring at the ceiling at night going, should we be doing this?”

Frank said the idea for the new brand, which started a year ago during a conversation with Adrienne Roark, President of CBS Television Stations, was driven by the post-Covid environment where people began reconnecting with their communities and changing how they consume their news.

Roark added that the new brand reflects the station group’s mantra, “that we exist to make our communities the best places to live by doing strong, solid journalism, exquisite storytelling and really serving and reflecting the communities.”

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