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This is a day for those who ever worked at KNBC in Burbank to think, wow, they are leaving the old newsroom and studios. Tonight's shows are the final KNBC news broadcasts from the corner of Olive and Alameda. Conan Nolan, the host of "News Conference" on NBC 4, included in his Sunday show a behind-the-scenes tour of KNBC's home since 1962. On the final "News Conference" before the station moves to Universal City, Nolan took viewers up to the second-floor newsroom and into Studio 10, where the news shows have been broadcast or recorded. (Makeup artist Lisa Morgan gets a quick shout-out.)
Nolan talked about some of the past anchors at KNBC and mentioned that when actor George Clooney was young, he would run between the desks — his dad, Nick Clooney, was an anchor here for awhile. Nolan says a photo of the Burbank newsroom was used as the background image on Tom Brokaw's set when the KNBC alum was the anchor of "Nightly News" in New York. Included in the clip is footage of the 1987 incident when a man with a gun walked onto the set and demanded that consumer reporter David Horowitz read a statement. (The station went off the air, the man surrendered, and anchor John Beard grabbed the fake gun.)
Tonight on the news, weathercaster Carl Bell leads his own tour of Studio 10 (and adjoining Studio 5, used in the past by David Letterman, Bob Costas and others, and now for the news by Telemundo.) Bell said he began his television career as a tour guide at KNBC. He too stops into the makeup room where KNBC talent (and untalented "News Conference" guests like me) would get smeared, snipped and dusted.
KNBC veterans are reminiscing on Facebook about the old studios. I like this photo of Nolan's desk as he prepares for the movers. "Packing like the fall of Saigon," he quips.
